The possibility of voter fraud during the Aug. 5th primary is as real as day for Gregory Grant and members of the local chapter of the National Action Network (NAN). So in the near-noon day heat of Wednesday, Grant took to the steps of the Shelby County Election Commission to talk about a “smoking gun.”

There is evidence to suspect voter tampering and possible fraud in connection with the Aug. 5 election, said Gregory Grant, president of the Memphis Chapter of the National Action Network. (Photo by Warren Roseborough)

According to Grant, president of the NAN Memphis Chapter, the smoke is from the fire that the Diebold AccuVote TS voting machines used in Shelby County are under in various other cities. The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of NAN, has been made aware of the concern in Shelby County and has committed to visit Memphis, if concerns here are not resolved to the local organization’s satisfaction, Grant made clear during and after a press conference.

Vowing to “protect the integrity of the vote”, some of the Democratic Party candidates defeated on August 5th, have taken the Election Commission to court. Controversy swirls around the fact that some voters were turned away after being told that they had already voted. Somehow the wrong database was put into the electronic poll books.

“Thousands of people were turned away at the polls,” Grant said Wednesday, adding that he received over 50 complaints from people at the polls on Election Day. “We have encountered stone walling by the Shelby County Election Commission concerning the computer glitches in the voting machines.”

At Wednesday’s media conference, Grant distributed copies of a University of Princeton study critical of the Diebold AccuVote TS voting machine used locally. The study concludes the Diebold voting machine is vulnerable to computer viruses and voter fraud.

Grant noted that the study states that the voting machines can be manipulated with a code that steals vote undetected and spread from voting machine to voting machine during an election. Such threats require changes to the voting machine’s hardware and software and the adoption of more rigorous election procedures, according to the study.

NAN has requested that the Election Commission release information on the absentee voting ballots, poll tapes, memory cards, all voting equipment and records. In their request, the organization charged that the incomplete records they have received show evidence of voter tampering and possible fraud.

Grant said that the issue of possible voter fraud in Memphis has national repercussions because of the concern elsewhere about the Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine. The issue, he said, is beyond race and rooted in the rights of all Americans to a just and fair election process.