I received a "forwarded" email that your forwarded regarding "big problems in Shelby" related to the current election. I must say I was surprised at the gleeful tone of that email, but even more so I was surprised that you would pass on such harmful suggestions to voters. I fail to understand how contacting you would help a voter resolve a ballot problem?

If you are interested in helping voters, this is what you should tell them :
1. They should be prepared before going to the polling place. Know who they will vote for and know their precinct number. Their precinct number is on their voter registration card and on the sheet of paper (ballot application) they sign at the polls.
2. The poll worker is supposed to walk them to a voting machine, the voter inserts the voting card; on the upper left hand side of the screen their
precinct number will appear. The worker compares those numbers with the voter and then steps away so the voter can vote privately.
3. If those numbers do not match a new card is programmed and the same confirming procedure is followed.
4. If the numbers match but the voter realizes at some point during the voting process that something is missing from his ballot he should STOP immediately and summons the officer.
5. NEVER EVER push that final "cast ballot" button until after carefully checking the summary page. The summary page shows the choices you have made; if any are incorrect they can be corrected at that point. Some voters have a light touch and the machine fails to acknowledge their choice,if so, they should touch the choice until it correctly appears on the screen. Once that confirmation-Cast-Ballot-Button is pushed, nothing can be done about that ballot. It has been cast.
HOWEVER - if the voter notices a problem, before he pushes that final button, and waits until the officer comes to him the officer can void that ballot, and resolve the problem
right then and there.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions. Everyone wants good, clean, problem-free elections and working together we can accomplish this goal.

When my friend Mr. Holt experienced the problems that he experienced (if you are unaware, please stop here and read this: (link...)) gthe first thing that I did was to give him contact information for Norma Lester and George Monger.
Secondly, once you read Mr. Holt's information and find that the information provided him on the Precinct Locator was INCORRECT (it showed him in HD 98 when the very map to which it links shows him in HD 93), how can you state people need to be prepared when the information provided to them from your website is in accurate and unreliable.
While we are on this subject, I continue to be aggravated by Mr. Holden cl;aiming that the delays in getting "accurate" information to the public were caused by the County Commission, when in fact the County Commission's new districts won't matter for another two years! He has also indicated that your office has "two weeks" to get this right before election day. No, the first day of EARLY VOTING isd Election Day and every day there is voting thereafter is Election Day.
I digress.
I have been involved with politics in this county since 1978 and I am quite familiar with the elective process. While I am certain that you and your fellow commissioners are providing oversight, your operations at this time are not acceptable at this time. As these problems affect not only Memphians but suburban residents desperate to vote on whether to create their own school districts, this is a bipartisan and county wide issue.
I would love nothing more to direct people with problems to the Election Commission, and, in fact, as my note about Mr. Holt shows, I have.
I would just like to have more confidence in their operations.

I direct you attention to the shelbyvote.com. On the very top of that page,even today, we are quite clearly alerting people with an alert button. Following that button it states that the redistricting and precincts information is not current.

Regarding the County Commission district situation and their failure to determine lines etc. You are incorrect that the County Commission lines don't matter until another 2 years. Their lines effect and involve much more than their own districts. School board lines are involved, precinct locations, and other lines which cannot cross County Commission lines. Regardless of when they next run for office, their district lines had to be known before other lines could be drawn. There was much more involved than just County Commission districts lines.

Our attorneys made sure the County Commission as a whole and individually knew of the critical nature of their delay. Having to condense a normal 3-month project into less than six weeks is bound to create some problems. Our IT man warned us several weeks ago and asked for our support and understanding. The commission is doing the very best we can do under the circumstances.

Your Mr. Holt did the correct thing to not continue with a ballot missing info he knew should be there. Telling people to call for an officer and void a ballot is the correct things to do, your Mr. Holt was an informed voter, he knew who was supposed to be on this ballot and was able to correct the situation because he was an alert, informed voter.All voters should be as aware.

matter), would you care to elaborate on this comment:

Regarding the County Commission district situation and their failure to determine lines etc. You are incorrect that the County Commission lines don't matter until another 2 years. Their lines effect and involve much more than their own districts. School board lines are involved, precinct locations, and other lines which cannot cross County Commission lines. Regardless of when they next run for office, their district lines had to be known before other lines could be drawn. There was much more involved than just County Commission districts lines.
What lines cannot cross County Commission lines? How, since these races will not take place until 2014, does that affect all the other races? Frankly, I find your comments not helpful at all.

am sorry that you did not find my comments helpful.

County Commission lines and State Senate lines cannot cross! Senate 28 was moved out of Shelby County which meant that essentially all the State Senate lines in Shelby County were redrawn and none of the County Commission lines could cross over those lines. Do you understand? Had to know County Commission lines, before State Senate lines could be redrawn..

Natural boundaries, streets etc must also be taken into consideration as well as census tracts, precinct locations etc. to equalize the numbers of voters in each state Senate district. That population range is 183,182 to 200,812.

In addition, precinct consolidations resulting from building closures or to comply with ADA had to be taken into consideration. This will be the first election in Shelby County where all the precincts are ADA compliant. Those issues were hanging on the much delayed County Commission decision. As I stated before, our attorneys made every attempt to convey the severity of the situation to the County Commission and I believe a judge finally made the decision for them less than 6 weeks before the election.

I believe there were 21,000 streets that had to be physically looked at after the County Commission finally drew their lines. So, Mr. Steffens, I think we are doing a good job under the above circumstances. I ask that you direct voters (1), to be aware and if something is not right on their ballot they (2) should call the Precinct officer over to their machine before they have pushed the final "cast ballot" button. (3) No one can help them IF they push the final Cast Ballot button. They can possibly be helped on the spot if they get the precinct officer.

While I certainly appreciate your patience, your previous response has only engendered more questions on my part.
1. If Commission and State Senate lines cannot cross, explain why current County Commission Dist.1 has old Senate Districts 28, 30, and 31 in it.
In fact, it would be impossible for County Commission lines to conform to State Senate districts as the County Commission district is larger than a State Senate district.
Where in TCA does it state this?
2. Interesting that precinct consolidation is brought up as the lack of redistricting info from the County Commission could slow this process down because precincts cannot be split between two Commission districts. So, while there's no doubt that precinct consolidation was hamstrung, that never precluded the Election Commission from updating Senate Districts.
3. How would the County Commission have met its 1/1/12 deadline and conformed their districts to Senate lines that were not approved and published by the TNSOS office until 2/14/12?
Again, thank you for your patience.

Sorry, but too busy to continue to explain, so this will be my last brief attempt -- IF senate 28-30-and 31 were indeed completely contained in Co Comm 1, then they did not cross out of Dist 1. but were contained completely within Dist 1 hence, they did not cross county commission lines. ( they weren't partly in one commission dist and partly in another so did not cross lines)

As far as I know this has always been the rule and I have definitely know many years however, I did call to confirm before last email -- could be a county or state rule, I don't know, but it is accurate.