NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Election officials said Tuesday that some Nashville voters were given the wrong ballots during early voting for the upcoming November 8 election, resulting in votes for their incorrect congressional district, state house district or state senate district — an error that Davidson County election administrator Jeff Roberts confirms also existed during the entirety of the August primary election in Nashville.
Roberts told NewsChannel 5 that more than 200 votes have been cast wrong in the November race:
- 190 voters cast ballots in the wrong congressional race
- 16 cast votes in a wrong state Senate race
- 6 cast votes in a wrong state House Race.
It's unclear how many improper ballots were cast during the August primary.
In an interview with NewsChannel 5, Roberts says the issue was spread across voters in every state House and Senate race in Davidson County and all three congressional districts, though the problem had been fixed now, and that any remaining early voter and voters on election day would be given their correct ballot.
Watch our full interview with Jeff Roberts below:
One of the precincts includes the 7th Congressional contest that pits a Black Democratic candidate, Odessa Kelly, against Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green.
Rep. Green released a statement Wednesday morning, saying "I’m shocked and disappointed to hear about the balloting issue in Davidson County. No one should ever have to worry about whether or not their vote was cast properly. The Davidson County Election Commission needs to fix this immediately. We are closely monitoring the situation.”
Kelly, along with other Democratic leaders and candidates, had a press conference at noon Wednesday to discuss the issue. Watch that full press conference below:
Early voting has been ongoing for nearly two weeks.
"What can be done to correct the votes — the ballots — that have already been cast incorrectly?" asked NewsChannel 5's Jason Lamb.
"Nothing can be done," Roberts replied. "If you think about it, we voted 45,000+ people early voting. I don’t know which ballots they are. They all go into that scanner, and there’s nothing that identifies who, where, or anything on that ballot."
"What’s a voter to think, hearing that from the top election official in Davidson County, that nothing can be done to correct what’s already happened?" Lamb asked.
"I hope that the voters would recognize that every individual is prone to make a mistake, and you would hope that they would correct it as soon as they know about it," Roberts said.
"How does this not play directly into the hands of people who don’t have faith in how votes are counted in this country?" Lamb asked.
"I think if there was lack of trust, it would be mitigated to some degree when you see the staff at an election commission, immediately upon recognizing that there is an issue out there, that they are fixing it," Roberts said. "This is not something they swept under the rug and hope it goes away, and they are not hiding what’s going on. They are sitting down and inviting the press to come over and tell you what we experienced and what we’ve done to fix it."
Julia Bruck, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, told the AP that the information on the state’s GoVoteTN app is submitted from each individual county and “relies on accurate information from the local election commissions.” Bruck said the office is not aware of any other issues elsewhere.
Kelly’s campaign treasurer, Anna Carella, was hoping to cast a ballot for her boss. She relied on the comptroller’s website, which said she was in the 7th District, and for weeks she thought she would be able to vote for Kelly. But when she went to vote early, poll workers handed her a ballot that included the 6th District race, Carella said.
“That there’s conflicting information about what your district is,” Carella said. “It definitely doesn’t instill confidence in the system.”
In the 7th District race, both Kelly and Green have spoken against the redistricting plan that carved up Nashville.
During redistricting early this year, Tennessee Republican state lawmakers redrew the state’s 5th Congressional District with an eye toward gaining an additional GOP seat in Congress, where the balance of power is on the line in the midterm elections.
The redistricting plan, which carved Nashville into three different seats, spurred the city’s longtime Democratic representative, Jim Cooper, not to seek reelection. That created an open race in a newly drawn district — now snaking through six counties — that favored Donald Trump over Joe Biden by 12 percentage points in 2020.
The 6th District is the most favorable Nashville seat for Republicans, where GOP U.S. Rep. John Rose of Cookeville is running for another term. Trump topped Biden there by 30 points. Rose faces Democrat Randal Cooper.
Meanwhile, Carella still put up a campaign sign in her yard for her candidate, Kelly, after she couldn’t vote in her race. While she’s disappointed she couldn’t vote for her preferred candidate this year, she’s grateful that her neighbors will be able to cast a correct ballot by Election Day.
“Still worth it,” she said.
