NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) -
Davidson County officials are raising serious questions about the accuracy and reliability of the county's new electronic poll books.
The Davidson County Election Commission met Tuesday for the first time since problems with the electronic poll books were first revealed, and the election commissioner said voters in three precincts may have been inadvertently given Republican primary ballots.
"We know we have five voters here at Looby who are showing a Republican history in this election when zero Republican ballots were cast on the machine. That's an error," said Election Commissioner Albert Tieche.
Tieche singled out three precincts where voters may have had problems with the ballot: Looby Community Center, Trinity Lane United Methodist Church and Memorial Lutheran Church.
It's important to note two of those precincts are in House District 58, where the Democratic primary was decided by about 40 votes.
However, Tieche said it appears based on the numbers that voters ended up voting in the correct primary.
Commissioners voted Tuesday to use the poll books only as an address lookup for the November elections and not use them to issue any ballots.
Still, Metro council members are not satisfied with the answers they've received about the issue so far. The council is expected to consider Tuesday evening whether to withhold money from the election commission intended to buy enough electronic poll books for every precinct in the county.
"We should not release that money until we get every glitch out of the way. The machines should not have defaulted to the Republican party. It's totally unacceptable, totally un-American. And we should not tolerate it in Davidson County," said Metro Councilman Jerry Maynard.
Council members have said they want an independent audit before going ahead and buying the books.
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