BREAKING: Dolly Parton’s Sister Says a Tennessee Voting Machine Kept Switching Her Vote to Republican Marsha Blackburn
Imagine walking into a polling place, pressing the name of the candidate you want, and watching the machine pick the Republican instead. Now imagine it happening three times in a row.
That is exactly what Stella Parton, the younger sister of Dolly Parton, says happened to her at the Hermitage Library outside Nashville. “I had to go back three times and correct my vote because it kept defaulting to Marsha Blackburn,” she wrote on Facebook. “I would never vote for her for anything.”
Dolly Parton is one of the most beloved people in America. She gives away millions, mails free books to kids, and has somehow stayed above the political fray for decades. Her family does not go looking for a fight. Now her sister is standing in front of the whole country saying something is wrong at a Tennessee voting machine.
Stella did not just complain and move on. She told every voter in the state how to protect themselves. Check every screen. Take the extra minute, even if the line is long. “Do it anyway,” she wrote. “Don’t let them rig this election.” And then she said the part that a lot of Americans are feeling right now: “I’m more frightened and frustrated than angry.”
She is not alone. WSMV in Nashville reported that at least two other voters in nearby Williamson County described the same thing. Jackie Herrud, who voted at the Longview Recreation Center in Spring Hill, says she was pressing the button for Democrat Jerri Green and the machine kept sending her to Blackburn. “I kept punching for the Democrat, Jerri Green, and it kept punching back to Marsha Blackburn,” Herrud said. She added that poll workers told her they had heard similar complaints.
The timing is wild. Nashville is seeing turnout 15 times higher than the 2022 midterms, fueled by a governor’s race that has Tennesseans fired up, with Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn facing Memphis City Councilmember Jerri Green. When that many people show up to vote, every single ballot matters.
Election officials in other states have brushed off vote-flipping claims in past cycles, and Tennessee officials have not yet answered requests for comment on these reports. But the people who actually stood in those booths are not waiting for permission to speak up.
Stella Parton could have shrugged it off. Instead she looked at a screen that was not doing what she told it to, fixed it three times, and warned a whole state to do the same. Tennessee, listen to Dolly’s sister.
