Staff Reports
Stella Parton — Dolly Parton’s outspoken sister — lit up social media this week with a Facebook post saying a touchscreen ballot at the Hermitage Library repeatedly defaulted to U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn while she was voting in Tennessee’s early voting. Her post and follow-up comments, which included a violent swipe at Elon Musk and “Russian bots,” exploded online and reopened the old fight over touchscreen voting, paper trails and election integrity.
What Stella Parton says happened at the Hermitage Library
Parton says she tried to cast her vote and had to correct the touchscreen three times because it kept selecting Senator Marsha Blackburn. She told followers to check their printed review screen before feeding a ballot into the scanner and warned, “Don’t let them rig this election.” In a later comment she blamed outside actors and wrote language that many found shocking — reportedly wishing death on those she accused of upending elections, including Elon Musk and “Russian bots.” That kind of rhetoric is ugly and unhelpful, even if the underlying complaint deserves attention.
Officials say the problem looks like user error — but voters are reporting the same glitch
Tennessee election officials, speaking for the Secretary of State’s office, say the pattern looks like “unintended touch” or calibration quirks on ballot‑marking devices, not some organized vote‑flipping scheme. They note the system prints a voter‑verified paper ballot and that formal complaints to the state are few compared with the hundreds of thousands of ballots cast so far. Still, local reporters found other voters who described similar touchscreen mis‑selections at sites in Davidson and Williamson counties. That gap between viral social posts and formal complaints is real — but so is the repeated anecdotal reporting. You don’t get to tell voters their experience didn’t happen just because it embarrasses one political tribe.
Why we should take both the claim and the spectacle seriously
First: the claim. If machines are misregistering selections, the public deserves answers and checks that everyone trusts. The printed paper record and review screen are supposed to catch these slips, but they only work if voters know to use them — and if poll workers and officials actually log and fix machines after complaints. Second: the spectacle. Parton’s violent language aimed at private citizens and tech leaders is corrosive. Wishing death on rivals and on people you blame for an election problem does nothing to fix voting systems. It only poisons debate and gives officials an excuse to focus on celebrity theatrics instead of audit reports and technician logs.
We should demand straightforward, common‑sense fixes: bipartisan technicians checking machines, public summaries of any calibration or repair logs, encouragement for voters to confirm the printed ballot, and wider use of hand‑marked paper ballots or routine audits where feasible. Both political sides have used voting‑machine stories when it suits them and dismissed them when it doesn’t. That hypocrisy won’t secure future elections. If you care about free and fair elections, stop cheering when a celebrity screams and start demanding audits, transparency, and simple protections that let every voter trust their vote was counted.
