Stella Parton, an artist and sister of the late Dolly Parton, said she recently had to correct her vote for governor three times while using a voting machine at an early voting site in Nashville.
The Parton problem — and fears that voting machines will change votes — comes up almost every election, even though election officials and experts say it’s almost always due to accidental touches on voting machines, not anything nefarious.
“In Tennessee, last week at the Hermitage Library where I voted, I had to go back three times and correct my vote because it always defaulted to Marsha Blackburn,” Parton wrote on Facebook Wednesday.
Parton told CNN in an interview that after the second time she saw her vote was incorrectly listed as Blackburn, the Republican senator running for governor, she called a poll worker to make sure her vote was correct before submitting her ballot.
“She came and helped me. I did it myself twice, and it kept coming up. And I thought, ‘I can’t stand here and wait in line,'” Parton said.
Parton voted in Nashville last week on the first day of early voting, she said. She decided to publicly raise her issue with the voting machine after seeing other people express similar concerns. She urged voters to check their printed ballot before submitting it.
“When I saw other people having the same problem, it upset me. I was like, you know what, go ahead and post your own experience, because people need to be informed before they get to voting day,” Parton said.
Mark Goins, Tennessee’s elections coordinator, told Nashville’s WSMV — in response to claims by Parton and other local voters — that machines in Davidson County give voters a printed ballot, which is one of several checks to ensure their selections are correct.
In 2024, Goins said Davidson County offered voters coffee stirrers upon request to prevent unintended contact with the screen, something he said the county would do again this election.
CNN has reached out to the Davidson County Elections Office and the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office for comment.
Election Systems & Software, the nation’s largest election equipment maker, said voting machines are thoroughly tested before each election to ensure accuracy.
Similar concerns about vote switching by voting machines emerged in 2024 in several locations around the country, but election officials said there was no reason to believe votes were being changed, CNN reported at the time.
Becker said touchscreen voting machines show the voter their choices to give them the opportunity to correct their choices, and a printed ballot can be reviewed before the vote is submitted.
“If there is a mistake, they can cancel the ballot and vote again,” he said.
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