As you've probably heard, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a new law requiring voter verifiable voting in Tennessee and the Governor signed it into law on Thursday.
Contrary to some earlier media reports, county election offices will not be able to simply retrofit DRE (direct recording electronic) voting systems with printers. Instead, the new law specifies that "the ballot of record shall be a paper ballot marked by the voter" and that optical scan machines at the precinct level will be used to tally the votes.
The bill also requires county election offices to audit machine tallies by hand counting 3% of the votes from 3% of the precincts selected at random.
County election officials are rightly concerned about the increased cost for printing and storing paper ballots. The law does, however, allow for "printing on demand" to help mitigate the costs.
The law goes into effect Jan. 1 2009. Existing systems can be used for 2008 elections, but any new systems purchased or leased after Jan. 1 must comply with the new regulations. The estimated cost for new machines is $25 million.
The law authorizes election officials to expedite replacing or modifying old systems for compliance, and mandates that new systems must be in place for the 2010 general election.
But there's a catch:
...notwithstanding any provision of this act or any other law to the contrary, the requirements of this act mandating the purchase or lease of new voting systems shall be implemented if and only if federal “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA) funds previously allocated, or other federal funding resources, are available to pay the full cost of purchasing or leasing such new voting systems.
This is significant, because the vast majority of voting machines in the state of Tennessee are DRE touchscreen or pushbutton voting machines. Optical scan machines are used in only two counties. DRE touchscreens are used in 17 counties, and the rest, 76 counties, use DRE pushbutton machines.
In other words, if I read it correctly* the bill requires replacement of voting systems in 93 of 95 Tennessee counties, but does not provide any funding for it and only requires it if federal funding becomes available. It is our understanding that there is some HAVA money left over, but is it enough?
UPDATE: According to the most recent U.S. Election Assistance Commission report I could find, Tennessee has approx. $31.4 million in unused HAVA funds available. The EAC had issued an opinion at one point that states could not use those funds to replace machines already purchased for compliance with HAVA (most of the systems in Tennessee), but this decision was later reversed. So if I'm reading all THAT correctly, Tennessee would have enough HAVA money to cover the $25 million cost.
Previous background on Tennessee's voting systems here.
(*Y'all can help me out. The bill info is here. If I read it correctly, the Senate bill was withdrawn and the House bill was substituted. Then a Senate amendment was adopted with the above "catch", and the amended bill passed both chambers and was signed by the Governor.)
