UPDATE: Terry Frank over at Frankly Speaking covered this early yesterday. Everybody in the TN blogosphere needs to send a message to Bredesen and together we will make a difference. We need bloggers in middle and west Tennessee on this one. First, it is Kelvin and Knox County. Next, it is a middle and west TN community. Do not stay silent on this one, or it will be too late.

I received the following email from Kelvin Moxley, last evening. I appreciate Kelvin bringing this to my attention. You may received his email as well, I appreciate the fact that he apparantly has sent it out to hundreds to thousands of email addresses. As you may know, Kelvin stepped up and ran as a write-in candidate for Knox County Clerk, he came close to qualifying to be a county-wide candidate against an entrenched Democrat officeholder.

Now, the legislature has passed a law to make it IMPOSSIBLE to run successfully as a write-in candidate. Contact the Governor, as Kelvin ask us to do. Remember, however the guy that Kelvin almost qualified against, Mike Padgett. Padgett’s son was Bredesen’s Knox County campaign coordinator.

Here is Kelvin’s email in its entirity.

Over the weekend, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a change to the law governing write-in campaigns. No longer will a write-in candidate be required to get 5% of the votes cast in the district primary. He now has to get 5% of the REGISTERED VOTERS in the district primary!

This incumbent protection act (HB1114) effectively guts any write-in campaign. In my recent campaign the threshold for getting on the August ballot was 1290 votes. This change in the law RAISES the threshold to 12,000 votes!

The lag time between the candidate filing deadline and the election can be as much as 90 days. Just think of what happened in the world of politics during the past 90 days. Write-in campaigns are the public’s failsafe against a corrupt incumbent politician running unopposed to re-election. Don’t let the Legislature take your voter safety net away!

Call Governor Bredesen and ask him to veto this assault upon grassroots political campaigns!

615-741-2001

Governor’s OfficeTennessee State Capitol Nashville, TN 37243-0001