EDITOR’S NOTE: On August 19, The Oak Ridger published an article about Tennessee Rep. John Ragan’s challenge to the results of the August 1 election. Those results showed that he had lost the Republican Party’s nomination for the 33rd District seat to Rick Scarbrough. Here is the press release Ragan sent out last Friday, August 16, about the challenge.
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This morning I submitted to the Republican State Executive Committee and State Primary Board a written notice of my participation in the August Republican primary in the 33rd District. The 33rd District covers over half of Anderson County.
The reason for my action has nothing to do with my opponent in the last election or the conduct of Anderson County election officials. Rather, I am alleging possible election interference through unethical and illegal crossover voting that destroys the integrity of our primary elections.
Free and fair elections are the foundation of political freedom. Our representative republic consists of more than free and fair elections, but without them it cannot long exist.
Keeping elections free and fair requires constant vigilance and unwavering opposition to fraud and rigging, whether by ideologues or “old-fashioned district chiefs.” In fact, the concept of “free and fair” itself is completely opposed to any fraud or illicit manipulation.
The questions I raise by participating in this election boil down to a few simple things: Does our electoral system really uphold the rule of law? Should voters in the Republican primary expect their votes to be protected from being illegally annulled by unethical “vote stealers” in the opposition parties?
“It is essentially true that virtue or morality is a necessary principle of popular government. This rule, in fact, applies with more or less force to every species of free government.” – George Washington
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- On election night in the 33rd district, the difference in votes between my opponent and me was 258 votes out of 5,668 votes cast.
- Based on the Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA), I am challenging the 1,135 votes in the 33rd District because 19.6% of the votes were illegally defected—more than three times the previously observed defection rates.
- According to the Republican Party’s published definition, they do not meet the requirements to be a true Republican. 197 of these defection voters were voters who had never voted for anything other than the Democrats in the last four primaries. Together with the 94 voters who had voted for the Democrats in three of the last four primaries, they made up 291. That alone is more than the difference in votes between the candidates.
- Of the contested voters, 518 have voted only once in the last four statewide Republican primaries and thus do not meet the Republican Party’s published definition of a true Republican. This number alone is more than twice the vote difference between the candidates.
- Of these defectors, 617 did not meet the party’s definition of a true Republican, having not voted for a Republican in the last four Republican primaries, again more than double the difference in votes between the two candidates.
Please note that TCA (Tennessee Code Annotated) § 2-7-115 (in part) sets forth the following requirements for a voter in a primary election: The voter is a bona fide member of the political party (emphasis added) in whose primary election he or she wishes to vote and is affiliated with that party; or
Please also note that Article IX, Section 1, Paragraph B of the Tennessee Republican Party Constitution defines the term “bona fide Republican” (in part) as: “Any person who has voted in at least two (2) of the four (4) most recent state and/or local Republican primaries.”
