Welcome back to inside Tennessee along
with my colleague John N John Becker.
Yeah, it's magic TV, magic, TV magic.
We are welcoming administrator
of elections in Knox County,
Chris Davis to give us a big picture.
Look at the ballot.
We've handled a lot of races.
John just interviewing the
candidates for Commission District 3.
But Chris Davis joining us to talk
about a ballot that is chock full
of races and people need to either
look at it beforehand or know
it's going to take some time to
work their way through it, Chris.
That's correct, I thank you for having me.
First of all, yeah this this ballot is 1,
probably the longest in an 8 year cycle,
meaning that depending on
where you live in Knox County,
you're going to have between 58 to
61 different races on your ballot,
and it's basically that consists
of either Republican primary or
Democratic primary for governor or U.S.
House for State House, State Senate.
All of the county races that
we voted on in May,
and the primary will now be in the
general if you live in the town of.
There gonna be some races there with
mayor and Alderman as well as of
course the obviously the five school
board races and then on top of all of
that we have every eight years what
we call judicial retention elections.
So there are 26 different Supreme Court
Court of Appeals and Court of criminal
appeals judges on the ballot to all told.
This ballot is going to be unique for us,
because now we're,
I guess this will be the 6th election
that we have had since we went back
to paper ballots in August of 20,
and it'll be the first time and hopefully
the only time for a long time where
we actually have to give the voter 2
pieces of paper with races on both sides.
So in essence,
4 sides if you will,
to complete.
So it's going to take a little bit of time
recognizing what you just said,
subtly and pleasantly about.
Please pay attention to your ballot.
Because it's so long,
I wonder if there isn't a danger
that some people will just blow
off parts of it and be like,
yeah, I don't know, don't care.
That is a concern and and that
happens every election and and
truthfully it doesn't matter if
you have five races on the ballot,
like for instance like a city election,
where maybe you just got
five City Council districts,
you're gonna have a lot of people who will
go in and vote for one person and be done.
Maybe two people will be done.
We know that's going to be the case,
but I do encourage people.
Maybe they're going to
look for one or two races,
and I'm certainly not going to tell people
how to vote or how they should vote,
but I would encourage folks
to do their homework.
Whether they go to our website or other.
Resources on the Internet or to give
us a call and we can mail a sample
ballot if we need to to someone.
If they don't have Internet access.
I just really want the voters to take
a just take a minute or two and just
be aware of what's on the ballot and
where you can find it on the ballot,
because obviously some things,
like for instance a mayor or a sheriff.
They're going to be down that
ballot just a little bit.
If you're looking to maybe vote
in the town of Farragut election,
that's really going to be down
the ballot quite a bit.
So I just want folks to kind of
have an idea of what to expect when
they go into the polling place.
They're not totally surprised
and taking 10 minutes plus for
instance to fill out their ballot
from a big picture perspective,
Chris, let's talk about turn out.
It's something we emphasize every
election cycle, typically in August.
What is the turn out in Knox
County for our viewers who haven't
been paying attention to that?
Turnouts usually
going to be between 50 to
80,000 for this election.
I will tell you four years ago,
if you'll remember we had
an open governor seat,
an open Senate seat, U.S. Senate,
which is not even on the ballot this time,
and an open U.S. House seat,
and that we had to believe 81,000 voters.
Obviously this time the governor's in
incumbent the House is an incumbent.
There is no Senate race,
so I I I do wonder,
maybe if that is if that might
lower turn out just a little bit,
but it's typically.
One of those you you typically
see more than you did in May,
but you're generally going to see the turn
out that you would for a November election,
such as the one we'll have this year.
But we're going to plan for that.
75 to 80,000, thinking that it
it may be a little below that,
but certainly I don't want to discourage
anyone from coming out to vote.
You know,
we've got 15 days of 14 days of
early voting like we always do,
and so I encourage people to take
advantage of it and and do it early.
Utilize those weekends as well,
because one of the things that
we see in our data.
Or we have three Saturdays
in this upcoming election,
and normally we just have two,
but that you know Saturdays
are a little lower turn out.
So if you want to get in and be
able to take your time and and and
vote the ballot the way you want to,
and you know free of feeling as
though you know you're being rushed,
certainly I would.
I would recommend voting on Saturdays,
but it's a. It's one of those things I think.
Turn out is.
Turn out was a little lower than
I thought it would be in May,
and so I'm I'm.
I'm thinking somewhere in that 50
to 60,000 range for August but but.
And again, just for some context
for our viewers, 50 to 80,000,
that's by my calculation anywhere
from 17% to upwards of 30% of people
who can vote do vote. Is that fair?
That's that's that's pretty accurate.
Yeah, I mean, you know you
look at we have a right around
295,000 active registered voters.
Right now I I do think given the run up
to November and a gubernatorial election,
I think will I think we'll surpass?
Maybe for the first time in the history
of Knox County, 300,000 registered
voters sometime later this year.
But with that 50 to 80,
you know that's about one out of every
six to one out of every, not quite 4.
So yeah, your numbers.
Your numbers are probably about right.
Yeah,
Chris. I've never known
your political opinions.
I would never ask you.
It's none of my business.
But I am curious.
We hear the old saw from our dear
friend Susan Richardson Williams
that people sort of get to the
first letter in the alphabet when
they don't know what to do and
they just check that one off.
I'm wondering if you think
that would be a factor as well.
In the voting you just go for the
let's say the be the candidate with
the B letter as opposed to say the
IRS or the T if that makes any sense.
You know we, we do see that
and and generally speaking,
depending on which and I'll use
this term in air quotes expert you
talk to or whichever study you see
that could account for anywhere
from 5 to 8% of the vote on,
you know, say, a generic ballot,
for instance, because as you know,
under under Tennessee law,
if it's not a partisan race,
meaning like meaning like our our,
our gubernatorial, and U.S.
House races this year,
that type of thing in the primary.
It just goes by the 1st
letter of the last name.
And so we we do see that sometimes.
But certainly I don't.
I encourage people to read the entire ballot.
I'll put it that way, John.
Any other specifics about this particular
election you want to point out on?
And then we'll get to some broader questions
coming up in a few minutes. Chris,
I think the the biggest thing
I would restless, you know,
we always stress early voting,
but particularly in this election where
you're going to be handed 2 sheets of
paper and it's going to take you a little
bit of time to fill out the ballot,
even if you go in knowing what you
want to vote for in every race.
I really do encourage early voting.
We have three Saturdays because this
election. Unlike most elections,
is on a Thursday and that sometimes
throws people off sometimes.
Election Day is Thursday,
August the 4th.
Not a Tuesday,
but we have three Saturdays of early voting.
We're going to be going from 10 until three,
and So what we what we have seen
in our data is we're opening up a
little bit earlier and closing a
little bit earlier on the weekends
because generally what our data
showed us and we really saw this in
May was people want to get out on
Saturday morning and and get voting.
Over with the people who do come out
and vote and then that that mid late
afternoon is is very very slow for us.
So I encourage people to take advantage
of early voting and particularly those
weekends because that really seems
to be a time where you can get in and
and take your time and and not feel rushed.
And Chris if memory serves in May,
voters did listen to you.
We saw more people early vote than
we did on voting voting day, correct?
That is correct, and that's the case in
most elections we can get as high as 7677%
in a presidential election on the on.
Conversely, in a presidential primary,
you may see only 1/3 of voters vote early,
because they're waiting to see
in those presidential primaries.
If you're familiar, maybe who drops out of
the race before they go to cast their ballot.
So you're probably talking
to two to one Election Day.
In those type instances.
But we we promote early voting.
We almost always have over 50%
of our folks early vote and and
really from an administrative.
Perspective it's just so much easier and
frankly from the voters perspective.
I think it's much easier because
the you can get in and out quicker.
You know you've got workers who
have been doing this now they work
14 days in early voting,
so by day do they day three.
They've got it down,
whereas Election Day as I've talked
about before these are folks who
literally work two to three days a year,
and so I just want to make
sure that everything's smooth,
and so I encourage people really
to to take advantage of early
voting and and generally speaking,
the majority of our voters do.
Chris Davis will.
Ask you to hang with us.
We'll be back with more of our
conversation right after this.