Koelman said after the polls close Tuesday, voting information is downloaded from the machines and vote totals will be printed on spreadsheets. Under the write-in category will be a total number of votes recorded, then each of those votes will also be printed out. Counting board members will then look at each of the printed names to determine if it is a valid vote. "The number of votes (for a particular write-in candidate) won't be known until we count them by hand," Koelman said. The counting process is likely to take longer in Montgomery County because of voter volume. Early voting accounted for 36,168 of the county's 90,063 register voters. Meanwhile, rural Houston County has 5,200 registered voters, and through 11 a.m. Wednesday, only 1,753 of them had voted early. As mentioned, Cheatham has nearly 24,000 registered voters with maybe half of that number participating in early voting. After Tuesday's election results are reported locally, and nationwide, vote counting in the 22nd District state Senate race will continue.

According to a complaint filed today with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, Sen. Rosalind Kurita used her political action committee (PAC) to funnel more than $25,000 in illegal contributions to her Senate campaign. According to the sworn complaint filed by Ricky Wallace of Montgomery County, Kurita in August and September illegally used her Kurita Majority PAC to pay for campaign expenses during that period, including: $17,070 for direct mail, $7,917 for legal services, and $665 for media consulting. Under state law, PACs can only provide up to $7,500 in contributions for a Primary or General Election. “Unfortunately, Sen. Kurita is so power-hungry that she’s flagrantly violating Tennessee’s campaign finance law,” said Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Gray Sasser. “She broke the law by crossing the one hundred foot boundary during the primary, and now, she’s cheating by illegally using PAC funds to cover her campaign expenses.”

This election cycle, FRCR is doing or has done work for several Democrats running for the Tennessee legislature, including state Senate candidate Tim Barnes - the candidate hand-picked by a few dozen Democrat insiders after Democrat party elites rejected the votes of 4,477 people in the primary and installed Barnes, the certified loser of the election, as the winner.

For the Tennessee Republican Party, fact-checking has long been overlooked, according to Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Gray Sasser correcting an erroneous press release distributed by the TNGOP earlier this morning. Fletcher, Rowley, Chao, and Riddle previously worked for Senator Rosalind Kurita in the District 22 Democratic Primary Election. Contrary to the TNGOP's claim this morning, FRCR has never entered into a contractual agreement with the Tim Barnes campaign. The Tennessee Democratic Party, however, has hired Scout Communications for independent expenditures in Senate District 22.

Senator Rosalind Kurita (D-Clarksville) received a major endorsement from the Tennessee State Employees Association (TSEA) in her write-in campaign for the State Senate. "From those state employees who provide disaster relief, to those who work with children in foster care, and from those who protect our highways to those who care for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, our state is fortunate to have so many dedicated state workers," said Sen. Kurita. "I am honored to receive this endorsement and appreciate their support." The Tennessee State Employees Association represents hundreds of state employees in the 22nd Senatorial District, which includes Montgomery, Cheatham and Houston counties.

When the case was heard last week, Kurita said that no matter what the judgement was from Echols that this case would wind up in the 6th Circuit Court. Assuming Kurita files a challenge, which all indications are she will, that is where this is headed.

Kurita, who lost support among many fellow Democrats after she cast a key vote in favor or Republican Sen. Ron Ramsey's election as Senate speaker in 2007, raised about $31,600 following for her write-in campaign. Barnes, meanwhile, raised about $36,500. The fundraising numbers reflect the level of outside interest in the race: Kurita raised only $4,000 from people inside the district, while Barnes collected only about $5,000 from potential constituents.