Heard two interesting things today:

1) That the Probation Department (Alan Beauchamp’s group) is being dissolved, and the service will be contracted to a private company. WYSH has the story:

…By telephone early this afternoon, Mayor Lynch said that while the Probation Department has been successful over the past several years in providing services to probationers and the community alike, he and other officials are tired of seeing the county government as a whole cast in a negative light because of what he called the rumor mill and negative reports about the department, which has been subject to numerous allegations of misconduct investigated by the TBI. While none of those probes have turned up sufficient evidence to prosecute anyone involved in the department with any wrongdoing, rumors and innuendo continue to swirl about the department and its chief Alan Beauchamp and were actually made into issues during the recently completed judicial election.

2) That the State Elections Coordinator, Brook Thompson, has called for the Anderson County Election Commission to delay certifying last Thursday’s election results until at least Monday, based on problems at the polls.

More as I learn it – AHA! The Oak Ridger just posted one of the stories:

Meanwhile, the Anderson County Election Commission has had to postpone the certification of its election results until 5 p.m. Monday. The Election Commission had planned to certify the results on Thursday afternoon but has been asked by state Election Commission officials to postpone the action.

Brook Thompson, state elections coordinator, sent out a letter to Election Commissions across the state asking that they first have a conference call with his office on Thursday or Friday.

“As you know, we tried a different procedure for election night that did not require you to hand-enter your vote totals,” Thompson wrote in a memo to all county election commissions. “While that process met with mixed success, the certification process is a different matter.”

The lead-in on that story is that David Stuart may challenge the election. I know I’ve heard many stories about long lines — 2 or even 3 hours — in the Anderson County election, and some people are simply not able to wait that long. One gentleman left because his oxygen tank was running out. Others may have left unable to bear the oppressive heat on election day, or because they had to go back to work, pick up children, or other obligations.

It was a long ballot, and I’d hate to be the election worker faced with removing a voter from the machine because they were taking too long, but on the other hand, the long wait in the heat undoubtedly meant that some people simply didn’t get to vote. Thousands fewer voted in this election than the one four years ago, and I don’t blame David Stuart for wondering if the voters who went to the polls and had to leave could have been his margin of victory.

Personally, I think it might have been. There’s no way to prove it, except a re-vote in November.