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Election commission retrains workers after voting secrecy controversy

Posted at 7:53 PM, Jul 22, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-22 20:53:16-04

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After NewsChannel5's Phil Williams raised concerns over Davidson County election officials being able to see voter's choices, the election commission has retrained its employees.

According to election administrator Jeff Roberts, early voting poll workers had a refresher before polls opened Monday morning.

Over the weekend, Chief Investigative reporter Phil Williams tweeted about his voting experience and how workers were helping people feed their ballots with the results facing up, in clear view of the employees.

"Our poll officials, to start out the day, they were a little bit further away," said Roberts. "Throughout the day they're getting closer and closer to the voter to the point that they're crowding the voter when they're voting. So, if the voter has turned it over, you could see."

Several other people also commented on Twitter saying they had a similar experience.

Roberts said all poll officials have been instructed to stay several feet back from the ballot scanning machine and instructed to give verbal commands to people needing help.

The scanning machines now have a sign on them telling voters to insert their ballot face down.

Councilman Russ Pulley said with any new system, problems will occur.

"These things are going to happen with new stuff, you gotta see and work out the kinks and listen to the feedback, find out what the issues are and then fix them," he said.

Roberts said he doesn't expect the same problem to happen on the day of the election.