Our “Mission”.
Authenticate the voter.
Authenticate the vote.
Authenticate the count.
Step One (part 1): Authenticate the voter.
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This begins by obtaining your counties voter rolls
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Please note that ANY citizen of Tennessee may go to ANY of the 95 counties and obtain that county voter rolls.
If you do not already know the phone number of your counties Election Commission office click here. Pick your county on the map for both the Election Commission office address and their phone number. There is one in every county.
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Call your Election Commission office and ask;
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What are your days and hours of operation?
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What is the cost to obtain a list of the voter rolls?
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Do you accept credit cards or must I bring a check. Note; some offices do not accept direct payment, you may have to go to another office, most likely the county Trustee to make payment and you will receive a voucher to present to the Election Commission office as proof of payment.
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Print out the list of data you will want to have included on your copy of the county Voter Rolls. See Below.
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Go in person to your Election Commission office at least 2 hours before they close. It would be best to go with a friend, as a witness, that will not have to do anything. There is strength (and reinsurance) in numbers.
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Walk up to the counter person and ask nicely, and with a smile, for a copy of the County Voter Rolls. Normally it should take 15 to 30 minutes for someone to go to the computer and set-up the download. This is more than a copy/paste operation. Give them time. There are many fields of data on the Voter Rolls database some may not be shared outside the election office (Social Security Numbers for one). You may get a “new person” and some offices can get busy so it may take longer. Tip; never go to a government office just before closing if you want to be successful.
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The counter person should ask you to sign a form stating that the information you are requesting will only be used for political purposes. You will be doing this so no problem signing the form. It is a crime to use voter information for commercial or sales use.
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You may be asked for your driver’s license as proof of residency in Tennessee.
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Upon handing the signed form back also hand the counter person the list of data, you previously printed out in step B above, and want included on your voter rolls download. There is no difference in cost if you get a lot or a little information on your download but you will be dealing with a person and in a way making more work for them. By giving them a printed list, it is more difficult for them to leave off any info.
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Provide payment when asked. Do not take any electronics for them to use, the state will not let foreign electronics plug into state computers (Yea Team) to prevent corruption. The Election Commission office will supply the new USB thumb drive (that you just paid for) with the data you requested.
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When the counter person gives you the requested data, I would suggest that you ask something like “Did you have any trouble getting the data I asked for?” If there was no problem, great. If there was a problem don’t argue, just politely take good notes on what and why the information was not supplied. Do this pleasantly and with a smile. You will likely be working with these people again and your role is to build bridges, start making relationships and be one of the “good Guys”.
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Also ask if the thumb drive has the “Record Layout Information”. The voter rolls will be in a spread sheet format and the column headers are in “Government Speak” and you will need some guidance to convert these headers to “Human Speak” so you can understand what you have. This will be especially needed for the Election Participation History columns. You will need a clear understanding of the date and type of elections and the codes used to record voting activity.
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Pleasantly, get the name of the person you worked with.
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Report any problems or any significant deviation from the above back to the coalition. We want to track how offices are preforming their duties. Use the “Contact Us” form on the top right of our website TNFairElections.org.
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If things are going well as they should ask for Bonus information after you have the voter rolls in your possession.
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How often is this done?
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What date was the last time the voter roll was cleaned up for voters that died?
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How often is this done?
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Take notes and report back. We want to track this across the state.Use the “Contact Us” form on the top right of our website TNFairElections.org.
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Optionally, if you are comfortable, and as you are already at the Election Commission office, and after you have the Voter Rolls in your possession, you may ask “Do you have a preferred form to use to request Poll Watcher credentials?” It has been reported that there has been difficulty in some counties with poll watcher groups. This is a simple request and not a statement that there will be poll watcher activity in your county. Normally this is done on the letter head of the group sponsoring Poll Watchers. If you have never done Poll Watching, it can be very interesting and every county needs more poll watchers. TFE is working in this area, please contact Moonhee in the Members Only, State Working Groups page. Please use the “Contact Us” form on the top right of our website TNFairElections.org to report back
Print out this list to give the counter person at the Election Commission office.
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Please included this data on my Voter Rolls information request.
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I request ALL available records for the current Voter Roll.
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• State ID
• Voter Number (county identification number)
• Last Name
• First Name
• Full Registration Address
• Full Mailing Address
• Date of Birth
• Race
• Sex
• Phone
• Registration Date
• Number
• Street
• Nursing Home
• Felon
• District
• Precinct Number
• Ward Number (if applicable)
• State House District Number
• State Senate District Number
• Congressional District Number
• Status (Active & Inactive)
• Status Date (date of status change)
• Election Participation History covering All elections in the county for the last 10 years.
Additionally, the Record Layout Document. This may be included as a separate record.
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Step One (part 2): Confirming your data and setting up your computer for success.
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Now that you have your counties voter rolls, first set up your computer for the process of managing large amounts of data.
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On your computer create a new file folder in a location that will be easy to find. You will be using this folder many times. Name it “(Your county) Voter Rolls”.
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Insert the USB thumb drive in your computer and copy the voter rolls file from the drive and place it in the new folder you just created.
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Label this first copy as “Original” or something to identify it as the exact copy of the data from the original thumb drive. Including a date to the file name will be helpful going forward. This file will be for historical purposes and remain unchanged.
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Do a “file, Save As” operation and make a second copy of the original data file. Label this file as “Working Copy One” or something to identify this copy as different than the original file. Place this file in the same folder. Including a date to the file name will be helpful going forward. Your work will begin using this file.
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Print out the Record Layout Document from the thumb drive.
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Open the Working Copy One file.
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Confirm the data in this file has all the information requested from the list of requested data, less anything you were told and documented when obtaining the voting records from the election office. The Record Layout Document will be very helpful if not required for this.
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Remove the USB thumb drive form your computer.
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Take a heave paper envelope and on the back write the date and time you obtained the thumb drive from the election office. Also write the name of the person you worked with at the office on the envelope, if available.
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Place the thumb drive in the envelope, seal using the gummed flap, address and mail this back to yourself.
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In a day or two you will receive back a piece of date stamped evidence acceptable in any court to establish the age of the drive.
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Place this envelope in a safe place you will be able to find in a year or three, if needed.
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Using the Record Layout Document print out you can rename the columns in the Working Copy One file to an understandable title.
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Upon completion or re titling do another “file, save as” operation and create Working Copy Two. Future work will be done on this file and so on. Keep making new copies when any major work has been completed. If/when the file you are currently working on goes wrong you will always have a previous file to duplicate again without losing all your work.
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A strong recommendation based on personal history. ALL COMPUTER HARD DRIVES CRASH. You need a regularly scheduled backup program or a cloud storage system. We all have valuable data on our computers that would be a great loss if destroyed. This goes beyond protecting the voter rolls maintenance you will be working on, keep your personal data safe as well.
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To be continued, now the real fun begins...
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