The job of Secretary of State Tre Hargett is to conduct fair elections in Tennessee. So why is hiding behind a bush-league legal opinion based soley on website research and refusing to do his job instead of implementing a law that would give Tennesseans secure and verifiable elections?
In 2008, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA), which mandates replacing the 100% unverifiable touch-screen electronic voting machines we use now in 93 out of 95 counties with paper ballots by the 2010 election. Despite efforts to gut and delay the TVCA during this year’s session, the law still stands – and it’s Tre Hargett’s job to carry it out.
But Secretary of State Hargett says he can’t. Why? Because a legislative attorney did some research on the Election Assistance Commission website and said that he couldn’t [pdf].
In other words, instead of using legal statutes for the basis of a legal opinion on the TVCA, the legislative attorney used “…references on the [EAC] website….” And it’s that flimsy website-based legal opinion – not an opinion based on legal research as he recently stated [pdf] – that Tre Hargett is using as an excuse to not follow the law.
And here is what will happen as each day ticks by and Mr. Hargett is not held accountable for not doing his job and hiding behind this flimsy legal opinion. First, he will continue to delay implementation claiming that “it is impossible to implement” right up until the General Assembly goes back in session in January. At that time, legislators will once again carry bills that will attempt to gut and then delay the Voter Confidence until 2012. If they fail and session ends, then State Election Coordinator Mark Goins will cry that he no longer has enough time to implement the law before the November 2010 election.
Tre Hargett is using a dubious and improperly sourced legal opinion as his basis for not doing his job and carrying out the law that would give Tennesseans secure and verifiable elections. Both Mr. Hargett and Mr. Goins both know that hiding behind such a flimsy and easily dismissed legal opinion is a useful delay tactic. And they know how their delay will play out. In fact, they are betting the next election on it.
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