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TN Officials Urge Voter Responsibility

Posted at 6:17 PM, Oct 25, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-25 19:17:32-04

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said he has not heard of major problems at polls since the start of early voting last week. 

"We are not seeing widespread problems, they are more isolated," Hargett told NewsChannel 5. 

Hargett was in Williamson County to promote early voting to dozens of people. The one isolated problem he knew of was the voter card issues in Shelby County on the first day of early voting. 

"They took quick actions and had it running in half an hour or less," Hargett said. "They did exactly what needed to be done, give provisional ballots and enter them."

Admittedly, with 95 counties, 2,000 precincts and more than 6,000 voting machines statewide, expect some machines to experience problems. 

Williamson County officials also had to deal with minor issues at the start of early voting.

"We had issues with computers and wrong ballot styles will get chosen for a voter," Williamson County Administrator of Elections Chad Gray said. "We often get those corrected in time...it's like the first day of school."

With the controversial idea of voter fraud at this year's election will be rigged, several have expressed claims to Facebook that machines changed their votes.

At least one post on a community page in Wilson County suggested the voter's choice for president had been changed after reviewing the ballot. 

Officials in Wilson County said the claims are questionable and urged voters to review ballots. With a new system, voters in Wilson County can check if their intended votes match twice to help with confidence.

"I have read the post, unfortunately the people that are posting these things are not even Wilson County voters, we can't find a record of them being here," Wilson County Administrator of Elections Phillip Warren.

State and local officials said it is about voter responsibility. There is the opportunity to review your ballot and correct it if it is not right. 

"I question why stir up something like this when our voters and workers are confident about the election," Warren added.

Early voting will last until Nov. 3 and Election Day is Nov. 8.