An unknown number of voters have cast ballots in the wrong congressional race in Nashville

by Rod Williams, Nov. 2 - According to the Associated Press, some Nashville voters have cast ballots in the wrong congressional districts.  Some voters in the 7th Congressional District were grouped wrongly with the 6th or the 5th. This mistake involved only one prescient and 1,350 voters live in that precinct.

In the 7th Congressional District, Democrat Odessa Kelly is running against Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green. Green will most likely win in a landslide, so this error will not change the outcome. 

In the 6th, incumbent Republicans John Rose is being challenged by Democrat Randal Cooper but Rose is expected to handily win that race so this SNAFU should not impact the outcome of the election.

While the original AP story did not say the mix-up impacted the 5th Congressional Districts, other reports say this impacts both the 5th, 6th, and 7th. In the 5th, Republican Andy Ogles is running against Democrat Heidi Campbell.  If the race is close, no matter which way it goes, the losing candidate could claim that had people who live in the 7th not voted in the 5th, he would have won the election.

Mistakes happen and there is no provision for an election do-over. It can be determined which voter voted in the wrong district, but no way to know how they voted.  This is an unfortunate occurrence at a time when many Republicans do not trust election integrity and when Democrats think there was something inappropriate about the redrawing of district boundaries. 

Despite Republicans controlling the redistricting process and all affected counties having Republican-majority election commissions, many Trumpinistas are ready to believe the most far-fetched conspiracy theory.  Should Ogles lose by only a handful of votes, one can be certain that Trumpinista Republicans will blame the "deep state" and "insiders" for stealing the election. 

Democrats are loudly blaming the mix-up on redistricting. “This is the result of a racist, bigoted, money-hungry Republican Legislature who is doing everything to hoard power to keep the system rigged against everyday working-class people,” said Nashville resident Odessa Kelly, the Democratic candidate for the 7th Congressional District seat. (*)

I hope Andy Ogles wins this election, but whichever candidate wins I hope it is by such a significant margin that the election results are not in question.

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