Voting equipment
photo by Hannah Campbell
Hamilton County’s new voting machines will be delivered Dec. 4. A $2 million grant from the Secretary of State is funding the 130 Election Systems and Software machines. Other big counties in Tennessee use the same ES&S DS300 model. Ballots are marked by hand and fed into the scanner.
The old Dominion Voting Systems equipment will be returned to Dominion because it contains proprietary election data.
Dominion never recovered after it was blamed for fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Tennessee did not re-certify the company, but commission Chairman Mike Walden said Hamilton County never had problems with Dominion.
“We had a good working relationship with them and their equipment,” he said.
The Hamilton County Election Commission voted to approve the Hamilton County List Maintenance Program in line with Tennessee code, which allows the election commission to compare voter rolls state-to-state and with commercially available data such as credit bureaus to spot duplicates.
The measure will help prevent the same person from voting in more than one city, county or state, and prevent the same person from voting more than once in a presidential election. It also will check people receiving public assistance in more than one place illegally. HCEC Administrator Scott Allen said the duplicates are identified using authoritative sources and high-quality matches only, not bits and pieces.
The election commission approved nine new polling places for the March 5, 2024 scheduled election, which differ from 2022 election locations:
East Lake to East Lake Community Center, 3610 Dodds Ave., 37407
Collegedale A & B to Chestnut Hall in Collegedale Commons, 4750 Swinyar Dr., 37363
Northwoods to Chattanooga Church of the Nazarene, 6310 Dayton Blvd., 37343
Silverdale to Chattanooga First SDA Church, 7450 Standifer Gap Road, 37421
Summit to Chattanooga First SDA Church, 7450 Standifer Gap Road, 37421
Ooltewah-Ringgold to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 3067 Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, 37363
Eastside to New Life SDA Church, 2099 E. Main St., 37404
Ridgedale to New Life SDA Church, 2099 E. Main St., 37404
Sequoyah to The Ridge Church, 9400 Hixson Pike, 37379
The election commission will approve new early voting locations at its January meeting. Early voting is Feb. 14-27, 2024.