Tennessee Ranks First in Election Integrity. So Why Are Voters Still Asking for Answers?

Tennessee Election Integrity: Part One of Three

Five Key Takeaways

1. Tennessee ranks No. 1, but what does that actually measure? The Heritage Foundation's election integrity ranking evaluates laws and safeguards, not whether every vote is accurately recorded and independently verified.

2. A printed ballot isn't necessarily a verifiable ballot. Some voting systems use machine-readable barcodes that voters cannot interpret, raising questions about whether the electronic count matches their selections.

3. Election observers are raising legitimate questions. Reported equipment problems and difficulties obtaining election records in Williamson County highlight the need for transparent procedures and meaningful ballot reconciliation.

4. Election integrity advocates want more than assurances. Proposed reforms include hand-marked paper ballots, stronger voter roll verification, expanded manual audits, and greater public access to election records.

5. Tennessee officials should be able to demonstrate election integrity, not simply claim it. A first-place ranking is an accomplishment, but public confidence should rest on independently verifiable results, not government assurances.

Tennessee has repeatedly been recognized as one of the strongest states in the country for election integrity, a distinction Secretary of State Tre Hargett and other state officials have been eager to promote. According to the Heritage Foundation's Election Integrity Scorecard, Tennessee ranks first nationally for its election laws and safeguards. That recognition would seem to offer considerable reassurance to voters concerned about the accuracy and security of their elections. But Tennessee citizens who have spent years researching election procedures are questioning whether the state's national ranking tells voters everything they need to know.

The distinction begins with what the Heritage Foundation actually measures. Its scorecard evaluates laws and policies governing matters such as voter identification, absentee voting, voter registration, election administration, and safeguards against improper voting. Those are important components of election integrity, but the scorecard is not an independent audit of every Tennessee election. It does not establish that each voting machine accurately recorded every ballot, that all county election results were properly reconciled, or that the public has sufficient access to the records needed to independently verify the reported results.

That difference between having strong election laws and demonstrating that elections are administered accurately is at the center of a longstanding disagreement between Tennessee election officials and grassroots election integrity advocates. Citizen researchers have spent years studying voter registration procedures, election technology, ballot accounting, and public access to election records. They have brought their findings and recommendations to lawmakers, county election commissions, and state officials, arguing that Tennessee should be able to demonstrate the accuracy of its elections through procedures that do not require voters to rely exclusively on assurances from the government.

Among the advocates' recommendations are hand-marked paper ballots, more extensive manual audits, stronger voter roll verification, transparent ballot reconciliation, and greater access to election records. These proposals are not all identical, and some involve substantial changes to election administration. But the common concern is that a secure election system should provide a reliable means of identifying mistakes, examining discrepancies, and confirming that the final count reflects the ballots lawfully cast.

Tennessee's Republican-controlled General Assembly has considered legislation addressing some of these concerns, yet several proposed changes have failed to advance. That has frustrated advocates who believe the state's political leadership should be especially receptive to stronger election safeguards. For them, the issue is not whether Tennessee has more protections than other states, but whether its lawmakers are willing to address vulnerabilities and transparency concerns that remain within Tennessee's own election system.

One of the most basic examples involves ballot reconciliation, the process of accounting for voters and ballots throughout an election. Election officials should be able to establish how many voters participated, how many ballots were issued, how many were accepted for counting, and how any rejected, spoiled, or otherwise exceptional ballots were handled. If those figures do not agree, the discrepancy should be documented and investigated. When the final accounting is available for appropriate public examination, voters have a means of assessing the accuracy of the process beyond simply accepting the reported totals.

Reconciliation is not the same as an audit of the vote count, although the two procedures complement each other. A reconciliation can help determine whether the number of ballots counted is consistent with the number of voters who participated, while a manual audit can examine whether the electronic tally accurately reflects the selections recorded on paper ballots. Both procedures matter because an election can have complete ballot accounting while still requiring an independent check of tabulation accuracy.

Public access to election records is another recurring concern. Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity and other citizen researchers have called for broader availability of documentation that would allow voters to examine election administration and verify results. Their recommendations include public reporting of ballot accounting, greater transparency concerning equipment and audit procedures, and access to election data that can be reviewed without compromising individual ballot secrecy.

In a document titled Comprehensive Voting Model Recommendations, Williamson County advocates outlined fifteen proposed changes addressing voter authentication, ballot security, vote counting, and continuous improvement. Their recommendations included returning to neighborhood precinct voting, reducing reliance on electronic pollbooks and centralized vote centers, using hand-marked paper ballots, independently checking electronic counts, and making election reports available for public review. The document represents the advocates' proposed model, not an established finding that the county's existing elections have been improperly conducted.

The proposal also calls for more rigorous testing of election equipment, including security evaluations and checks intended to confirm that software and hardware have not been improperly altered. Other recommendations address the number of voters assigned to precincts, the availability of voting booths, and the concentration of election technology services among vendors. Together, they reflect a broader argument that election security should be evaluated at every stage, beginning with voter registration and continuing through the final certification of results.

Voter registration accuracy presents another important distinction between legal safeguards and their practical implementation. Tennessee requires voters to meet eligibility standards, including United States citizenship, but maintaining accurate registration records requires ongoing administrative work. People move, die, change names, become naturalized citizens, or have government records that no longer reflect their current circumstances. A reliable registration system must be able to identify potential discrepancies while protecting eligible voters from being incorrectly removed.

The federal government has expanded the tools available to assist election officials with that process, including the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, commonly called SAVE. Tennessee election integrity advocates have questioned how frequently the state uses citizenship verification tools, what information is returned, and how the results are handled. They have also raised concerns about the expense of obtaining statewide voter registration records, arguing that high costs can make independent research prohibitively difficult.

Those questions do not establish that Tennessee's voter rolls contain large numbers of ineligible voters. They concern the state's ability to demonstrate that registration records are being maintained accurately and that appropriate verification procedures are being followed. They also raise questions about what aggregate information election officials could release without disclosing protected personal information or compromising election security.

In an interview with TruthWire News, Kathy Harms of Tennessee Fair Elections described difficulties obtaining information about the state's citizenship verification activities. Harms, who has worked with election attorney Cleta Mitchell, questioned whether counties should have greater access to federal verification tools and whether the state should provide more detailed reporting about the results of its checks. The specific federal programs, the changes introduced under President Trump, and the legal questions surrounding their use will be examined in the third installment of this series.

The cost of public records was another significant concern Harms raised during the interview. She argued that Tennessee's charges for statewide voter registration data discourage citizens and independent organizations from conducting their own examinations. She contrasted Tennessee's approach with jurisdictions where voter registration information is available at lower cost, while questioning why a state that celebrates its election integrity ranking does not make more of its supporting records accessible.

The amount and availability of voter registration data are governed by legal and administrative requirements, including protections for information that should not be publicly disclosed. Nevertheless, the underlying question deserves an answer: What records can citizens obtain to evaluate election administration, what does it cost to obtain them, and how are those charges determined? A system that provides meaningful oversight should make those rules understandable and consistently applied.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has emphasized layered election security, including physical safeguards, cybersecurity protections, paper records, and post-election verification. These protections are designed to work together because no single safeguard can eliminate every possibility of error or misconduct. Equipment certification, pre-election testing, chain-of-custody procedures, ballot reconciliation, and audits each address different parts of the election process.

That layered approach is particularly important when evaluating Tennessee's first-place ranking. The state's election laws may provide protections that other states have not adopted, but voters are also entitled to ask how those protections perform during actual elections. The quality of a legal framework and the quality of its implementation are related, but they are not interchangeable.

Secretary Hargett and Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins oversee a statewide election framework administered in cooperation with county election officials. Their offices are responsible for maintaining public confidence through accurate administration, compliance with the law, and clear explanations of election procedures. When citizens raise specific questions about verification, records, or equipment, the most useful response is documentation showing how the relevant safeguards operate and what the results demonstrate.

Tennessee's national ranking is a recognition of its election laws, but it should not be treated as the end of the discussion. The state can acknowledge its existing protections while examining whether audits, registration verification, ballot reconciliation, and public access to records can be improved. Those questions are especially relevant when citizens have invested years researching the system and presenting detailed recommendations to officials.

In the next installment, TruthWire News examines the technology Tennessee counties use to record and count votes, the distinction between human-readable selections and machine-readable ballot codes, and the election integrity legislation that failed in the General Assembly. The issue is whether voters can independently confirm that the choices they see on their ballots are the choices the machines actually count.

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