TN officials could implement the paper ballot law in plenty of time if they were anywhere as competent or organized as officials in North Carolina. NC passed a paper ballot law in August 2005 and was ready for early voting beginning in April 2006. And this even includes the time I went to court against Diebold.
Here is the timeline:North Carolina Voting System Implementation and Timeline
August 26, 2005 NC’s Public Confidence in Elections signed into law http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/Bills/Senate/HTML/S223v7.html
September 26, 2005 NC State Board of Elections invites comments on request for proposal (RFP)process
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/hava/voting_equ_memo.pdf
September 30, 2005 NC Verified Voting comments on RFP http://www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/NC-RFP%20comments.pdf
October 11, 2005 NC State Board of Elections issues RFP, bids to be opened November 4, 2005
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/upload/Voting_Systems_RFP.pdf
Three addenda to the above RFP:
one, http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/upload/04454101.pdf
two, http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/upload/04454102.pdf
three, http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/upload/04454103.pdf
December 1, 2005 the NC State Board of Elections certified Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia(conditionally).
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1895791,00.asp
December 22, 2005. Diebold withdraws as N.C. voting equipment vendor citing that itwasn’t able to meet the software code requirements.
http://www.ncvoter.net/dieboldnews.html
January 26, 2006. The NC Information Technology Services, the Attorney General and State Board Staff finalized an agreement with Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
The State Board of Elections also said it would do “acceptance testing” at a centrallocation before the counties received their equipment. (Counties would still beresponsible to test machines once received).“To facilitate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and provide quality assurance, StateBoard staff will assist ES&S as soon as confirmed orders are submitted and machinesare received at the central warehouse in Raleigh. The State Board of Elections willuse HAVA funds to pay for acceptance testing of the iVotronic, iVotronic ADA,M100 and AutoMark.
This procedure will more efficiently use available time, reduceout of the box error rates and result in an approximate cost savings of $2.4 million tothe county boards of elections. County boards of elections will be encouraged to bepresent for the UAT to monitor or assist as deemed appropriate.”
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/The_State_Board_Training_Seminar_Jan26_06.pdf
North Carolina Voting System Implementation and Timeline (page 2)
February 2, 2006. The NC State Board of Elections advises counties that they need to have their voting equipment ordered and received in time for one-stop voting which begins April 13, 2006 and for the primary election scheduled for May 2, 2006.
The SBOE also provides counties a “Grant Acceptance Agreement” and an additional $30,000 in funds if they finalize all orders by April 1, 2006.
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/The_State_Board_of_Elections_HAVA_grants_Feb_2_06.pdf
March 28, 2006 list of voting machine orders for NC Counties.
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/voterweb/Orders%20for%202006%20Primary.htm
One-stop voting begins April 13, 2006.May 3, 2006 First Time Rollout of Voting Machine Successful, Few Problems
http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060503/NEWSREC0101/60503019/-1/NEWSRECRSSARKIVE
May 3, 2006 Turnout Mixed, New Equipment Worked Well
http://www.thepilot.com/news/050306voters.html
printable file of the above
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/NCVoting_Voting_System_Implementation_Timeline.pdf