John Ragan explains his election results challenge

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Aug. 19, The Oak Ridger published a news story on Tennessee Rep. John Ragan's challenge to the results of the Aug. 1 election. Those results showed he lost the Republican Party nomination for the 33rd District seat to Rick Scarbrough. Here is the news release Ragan sent last Friday, Aug. 16, about the challenge.

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This morning I filed a written notice of contest with the Republican State Executive Committee and State Primary Board concerning the August Republican Primary in District 33. District 33 encompasses over half of Anderson County.

The reason for my action has nothing to do with my opponent in the most recent election or the conduct of Anderson County election officials. Rather, I am alleging potential election interference through unethical and illegal crossover voting which destroys the integrity of our primary elections.

Free and fair elections are foundational to political liberty. There is more to our representative republic than free and fair elections, but it cannot long exist without them.

Keeping elections free and fair means constant vigilance and unwavering resistance against fraud and cheating whether by ideologues or “old fashioned ward bosses.” Indeed, the very concept of “free and fair” is completely and totally antithetical to any cheating or illicit manipulation.

The questions I raise by contesting this election boil down to some, really, quite simple things: Does our election system truly insist on the rule of law? Should Republican Primary voters expect their votes to be protected from being illicitly cancelled by unethical, opposition party “vote raiders?”

`Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. — George Washington

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• On election night in District 33, the vote difference between my opponent and me was 258 votes out of 5,668 votes cast.
• Based upon the Tennessee Code Annotated (T.C.A.), the 1,135 votes in District 33 I am challenging as illegal crossovers constitute 19.6% - more than triple previously observed crossover rates.
• Failing to qualify as a bona fide Republicans by the Republican Party’s published definition, voters who had never voted anything but Democrat in any of the last 4 Primary Elections made up 197 of these crossover voters combined with the 94 who had voted Democrat in 3 of the last 4 Primary Elections made up 291 - alone, more than the vote difference between the candidates.
• Of the contested votes, 518 have only voted once in the last four state-wide Republican primaries and, thus, do not meet the Republican Party’s published definition of a bona fide Republican - this figure, alone, is more than double the vote difference between the candidates.
• Not meeting the Party’s definition of a bona fide Republican by never having voted for a Republican at all during any of the last four opportunities in a Republican Primary were 617 of these crossover votes - yet, again, alone, more than double the vote difference between the candidates.

Please note that the T.C.A. (Tennessee Code Annotated) § 2-7-115 specifies [in part] the following requirement of a primary election voter: The voter is a bona fide member of and affiliated with the political party [emphasis added] in whose primary the voter seeks to vote; or

Additionally, please note also under the Bylaws of the Tennessee Republican Party, Article IX, Section 1, Paragraph B [in part] defines the term bona fide Republican as Any individual who has voted in at least two (2) of the four (4) most recent state and/or local Republican primary elections.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: John Ragan explains his election results challenge