Something Is Sour In Tennessee — and It's Not the Whiskey, Part II
How the state fast-tracked a special election certification and shoved democracy by the wayside.
To understand how we arrived at a moment where states can shorten a two-week certification protocol to just three days with no oversight, then swear in candidates before an election is even certified—look no further than the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.
Treachery in Tennessee
After Tennessee’s December 2, 2025, special election, we immediately published our findings and alerted Aftyn Behn’s team to the anomalies. Unfortunately, even without the shortened window, Tennessee makes challenging election results extraordinarily arduous.
As shown above, the statistical patterns in Montgomery County exhibit large, uniform shifts in vote share as turnout increases. In election-forensic analysis, a sharply increasing relationship between a candidate’s vote share and turnout is considered highly anomalous.
Such patterns are commonly associated with ballot-stuffing or algorithmic vote reallocation in established forensic literature (Shpilkin, Udot, Klimek).
Not surprisingly, there is no threshold for an automatic recount, no mandatory audit of special elections, and citizens themselves have no course of action. Meaning that any challenge to election results can only be brought by a candidate or an incumbent—and must be filed within five days of certification.
Under the state’s standard two-week certification window, this would have allowed a fair amount of time to assess the data and make an informed decision.
Instead, Tennessee shortened the certification process from two weeks to three days, and the “winning” candidate was rushed to D.C. and sworn in by Speaker Johnson before the results were even certified.
Because none of that is suspicious behavior. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing to see.
Setting all of the above aside, Tennessee still reserves the right to decide whether a recount is even warranted. So the Behn campaign could have approached them with the math and the anomalous data, filed for a recount, and the state still could have said it wasn’t enough to justify opening the ballot boxes.
Unfortunately, the window to challenge the results expired on December 10, 2025, and per the Tennessee elections website, the results are now official.
We have no choice but to move on.
From Russia With Love
Above is a heatmap built using Dr. Peter Klimek, et. al’s methodology for displaying vote-share–to–turnout relationships by density. The left half of the image shows Montgomery County, Tennessee, on December 2. The right half of the image showcases suspected manipulated elections alongside modeled fair results.
There’s a reason U.S. election data resembles what we see in Russia and Uganda. Unfortunately, until the Democratic Party grows a spine, it will likely continue to look this way.
Yes, we’re saying the quiet part out loud. Because we’re tired of our elections being hijacked and the endless lather, rinse, repeat cycle: stolen election, silence, buckle down, beg for money for the midterms, promise we’ll get ’em next time—horseshit.
Think about this—the GOP has not had a legitimately elected president since Eisenhower:
Nixon: Colluded with South Vietnam to sabotage peace talks, better known as the “Chennault Affair.”
Ford: A placeholder after Nixon’s resignation.
Reagan: Colluded with Iran during the hostage crisis to undermine President Carter’s re-election.
Bush I: Was only a candidate due to Reagan’s coattails.
Bush II: Where to begin? Katherine Harris, a deeply compromised Secretary of State and Bush’s Florida election co-chair, purged 173,000 votes that disproportionately impacted Black voters, allowed Republican-leaning counties to count noncompliant overseas ballots, refused to extend the recount for Democratic counties, permanently erased election data from office computers, and certified Bush’s disputed 537-vote victory. Then a partisan Supreme Court upheld her decision.
Note: It was later revealed that the “hanging chads” fiasco was deliberately engineered using defective paper known to malfunction. And while the public was effectively distracted by the spectacle, six million votes disappeared.
Bush II, 2004: Hello, Ohio. Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell, a top Bush donor, emailed 100 GOP supporters vowing to “deliver [Ohio’s] electoral votes to the president” amid the company’s touchscreen deployment. Ohio’s 2004 rollout saw 93,000+ uncounted ballots and massive lines, blamed on machine shortages—echoing Florida’s chaos but without auditable records.
Trump, 2016 & 2024: Received an “assist” from the Kremlin. A corrupt Supreme Court rewrote the Constitution in his favor, allowing him to remain on ballots despite orchestrating an insurrection. His allies illegally breached voting equipment in five states between 2020 and 2021, and in 2024 the interference expanded to include Elon Musk and, of course, the Kremlin.
The Experts Have Been Ignored for Decades
It’s worth noting that many experts over the years have been met with the same BLUE brick wall that we are now facing. In 2006, Steven Freeman published Was the 2004 Election Stolen?, which landed with a less-than-spectacular thud. The same was true for Mark Crispin Miller, a New York University professor, whose book Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election, and Why They’ll Steal the Next One, Too (Unless We Stop Them) was largely dismissed.
Thankfully, some experts are still in the fight. Code Red author Jonathan Simon has continued to shed light on election integrity, even after testifying before Congress following the 2004 election. As Simon warned at the time:
“What we’re dealing with here, although the formality is all in place, is a stuffed animal, not a real animal—a taxidermic model of democracy.” – Jonathan Simon
It’s now 2025, and twenty years later that taxidermic model of democracy has grown into an elephant—or, more accurately, an entire herd.
Our previous reporting has identified corruption at every layer of the electoral system, benefiting the GOP, while the Democratic Party endlessly insists on “taking the high road” and declaring our elections “safe and secure.”
At this point, the so-called “high road” is nothing more than the scene of the GOP’s hit-and-run. They rig elections on the front end and bank on Democrats remaining silent.
For decades, the complicit cowardice of the Democratic Party has proven to be the GOP’s “winning” bet.
Please Sir, We Want Some More
So, Americans, how much longer are we expected to support a party that ignores its base during recount windows, then continues to ignore us as we demand hand-count audits of swing-state ballots before they’re destroyed?
Does it feel like we’re literally begging our own party for investigations and election transparency?
Yes. In fact, despite a citizen petition with more than 45,000 signatures, Pennsylvania officials ignored the request, forcing the Election Truth Alliance to file a lawsuit just to access the ballots for a hand-count audit.
Meanwhile, pundits and talking heads continue to insist that Democratic voters in the swing states were somehow so disillusioned by Vice President Harris’s progressive policies—the same policies that just won Mamdani an election—that they either stayed home, or voted blue down ballot and flipped to Trump at the top of the ticket.
Not in early voting.
Not by mail.
Only on Election Day.
*With the exception of Nevada and Pennsylvania.
He couldn’t fill a stadium and doesn’t know asylum is a homonym, yet the Democratic Party expects us to believe that Donald Trump—a racist, misogynistic, 34-count convicted felon and adjudicated sexual predator—flipped 88 counties red while not a single county flipped blue, and outperformed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory.
We have oceanfront property to sell—who would like to see it? Bonus: it’s in a swing state.
And the Democratic Party wonders why it’s floundering with a 33% approval rating. As they gaslight us into believing that refusing to challenge election results is somehow “protecting” democracy, then ask for more money to beat Republicans in the midterms.
Why donate? So Trump can unveil his “big, big surprise,” and “blue states will totally disappear off the map.” So Elon Musk can “pull a LOT of rabbits out of a hat”? So another stolen election can go unchallenged?
We the People hold “the power of the purse.”
Maybe it’s time to close it.
How Do We Fix This?
We need investigations and third-party hand-count audits in the states that won’t fight ballot access:
Michigan — Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel
Wisconsin — Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and Attorney General Josh Kaul
Minnesota — Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Keith Ellison
We have constitutional avenues to remove this entire illegitimate administration. A stolen election is a rebellion against the Constitution and is disqualifying under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It is well past time to initiate state-led investigations.
First, investigation. Then disqualification, followed by removal under Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which outlines the impeachment process and states: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Breaking news: authoritarians steal elections—especially when facing 88 felony charges and staring down multiple prison sentences.
We the People deserve better.
What We Can Do Together
YOU can: Call, email, and tag members of Congress and secretaries of state in Democratic-led states. We need them to authorize an independent, third-party hand-count audit.
YOU can: Circulate this Substack series to everyone you know and ask them to do the same. It’s up to us. We the People are the media now.
YOU can: circulate The Common Coalition Report and video—we need millions of Americans to light a fire under our elected leaders to take action.
And hold on to your hope. This is not left vs. right—it’s bottom vs. top. Again, we don’t need permission to enforce the Constitution. We just need courage.
Want the truth they’re not telling you? For fearless reporting and expert-backed research, read The Common Coalition Report. And if you believe in funding real, independent work—support our all-volunteer team here.
Thanks. So glad I left Tennessee in the rearview mirror six years ago after my voting machine there turned all my blue votes to red ones. My new home, New Mexico, ranks first nationwide for election integrity and, as a direct result, we elect almost entirely not Republicans. Most other states (at least those outside Dumbfuckistan) would too if you could. But if you have Republican Secretaries of State 'counting' your votes, you very likely cannot.
Stolen elections should be in the top three of Congressional investigations when the Democrats take over the House after the 2026 elections.