March 12, 2007 Conflicts of Interest on State and Local Election Commissions

A recent News-Sentinel article discusses a proposed law to address conflicts of interest on Tennessee state and local election commissions.

There is information about past involvement by election commissioners in Hamilton and Knox counties who advocated and/or wrote letters of endorsement for a particular candidate while these same election commissioners were charged with the conduct of fair elections in their counties.

The Tom Humphrey article also reports that local state Rep. John Litz (D-Morristown) mentioned during hearings in Nashville that two election commissioners in Hamblen County have children who are public officials.

One of the sponsors of the legislation Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) thinks that the current proposal would: "... send a signal to commissioners that they need to appear impartial if they are going to be overseeing the integrity of the election process."

Other lawmakers oppose restrictions on election commissioners.

When asked whether he would support Dunn's bill, Gov. Phil Bredesen said he wasn't familiar with the bill's specifics but that "having election commissioners taking part in partisan elections is probably something that ought to be eliminated."

Amen.