As anyone who is interested is probably aware, Sen. Rosalind Kurita's Democratic primary nomination has been voided by the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee due to being "incurably uncertain."

What is certain is the generally negative reaction from Tennessee bloggers on both ends of the political spectrum:

• KingstonSprings.org: Now a committee has to decide who will earn the right to represent our county.

• Andy Axel: State Party chairman Gray Sasser does not understand the meaning of the word "democracy."

• Sean Braisted: The ramifications of this meeting won't play out for a couple of days or weeks, but one thing I'm fairly confident in saying is that there will be significant blowback from an obviously flawed and, dare I say, undemocratic process.

• (UPDATE) LeftWingCracker: You all know that I thought Rosalind sold us down the river when she voted for Ron Ramsey, and I openly endorsed Tim Barnes to replace her. However, he LOST by 19 votes, and if the recount failed, they should have backed down. Just as I opposed the voiding of the Ophelia Ford election, I oppose this as well.

• (UPDATE) Silence Isn't Golden: Because why vote for Democrats if a primary can be so easily overturned if the party doesn't like the outcome? Why campaign for Democrats if the party doesn't value your contribution? Why try to get involved period if they're fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their own power at the expense of everyone else?

• (UPDATE) Sharon Cobb: When Kurita voted to put Ron Ramsey and the Republicans in charge of the State Senate, I was furious. I believe I called her a turncoat at the time. I still disagree with that vote. That said, I'm even more infuriated that my party would overturn a legitimate election as a vendetta for Kurita casting a legitimate, though unpopular vote

• (UPDATE) Newscoma: Smoke-filled room politics. Arrogant democratic leadership in this state is what it looks like.

• (UPDATE) Tennessee Ticket: The state Senate election was certified as a victory, albeit narrow, for Rosalind Kurita, and the state Executive Committee has chosen to ignore that fact. The only apparent reason for their choice is, in my opinion, petty partisan revenge.

• Music City Oracle: Regardless of party affiliation, this kind of contempt for election outcomes should not stand. One hopes that Tennessee voters will not forget.

• Stacey Campfield:: Got to love the Democrats. What ever it takes to get their man in. Forget the will of the voter.

• Bill Hobbs: The Tennessee Democrat Party steals an election from a woman (and the party is poised to hand the nomination to the man who lost the election) because the woman may have attracted some Republican votes. Apparently, the Democrats don't want Republicans to vote for their candidates. (Note: post has been removed, this is from the BlogNetNews RSS feed.)

To recap, Sen. Kurita won the primary by a mere 19 votes out of 8,935 total votes in the Democratic primary. The election results were certified. Republicans did not field a candidate, so the winner of the primary goes on to win the senate seat in November.

Her opponent, Tim Barnes, challenged the election and got it overturned by the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee.

Here are my thoughts.

If I lost by only 19 votes (0.2%), I'd contest the election, too, and so would you. I'd at least ask for a recount. Barnes said he was going to. I never heard any more about it. Was there a recount?

(Unfortunately, Tennessee uses electronic voting machines with no human-readable audit trail. Most would expect a recount to produce exactly the same results. Personally, I wouldn't, and in fact would expect a different tally every time if every voting machine in every precinct were actually "recounted." There are a number of procedural errors that can result in lost or miscounted votes.)

Barnes filed a challenge, citing a litany of alleged irregularities. Kurita filed a response, refuting them point by point.

The allegation that appears to have "stuck," however, is that Republicans were "illegally" voting in the Democratic primary for Kurita (even though there was evidence presented in Kurita's response that many were "crossing over" to vote for Barnes). This was apparently enough to convince the TNDP Executive Committee to void the election and hand the problem off to someone else.

(Personally, I have never been asked to prove my party affiliation beyond the act of asking for the party's ballot in a primary. "Crossover" voting happens all the time in Tennessee. And as I understand it, the only remedy in state law is for poll watchers to challenge individual voters' party affiliation at the time they vote, not after the election is certified.)

What essentially happened was the TNDP Executive Committee voted to overturn a certified election result, albeit a close one.

So, was this really about crossover voting or Sen. Kurita "illegally" using the restroom at a polling place? (Seriously, that last one was an actual complaint.)

No. This was about revenge. Sen. Kurita cast the deciding vote that elected a Republican Speaker of the Senate and Lt. Governor, and she has never been forgiven for it. Reaching across the aisle in the dawn of the "post-partisan" era of politics may be OK, but standing across the aisle with the opposition is not. (Unless you're the governor, of course.)

Lots of Tennessee Democrats were pissed off about it at the time, and rightly so in many respects. But everybody is entitled to a mistake or two. And despite his long and distinguished service in the Tennessee Senate, most Democrats would likely agree (privately anyway) that Sen. Wilder was becoming a liability if not an embarrassment. Perhaps the outcome would have been different if Democrats had stood up a better candidate.

As it is, a distinguished state senator with a long and successful record of advancing progressive legislation on education, health care, equal rights for women, and more, a senator who represented the interests of military personnel and their families attached to the 101st Airborne in Clarksville during a time of war, and one of the few women serving in the Tennessee Senate, has been thrown under the bus because of some inside baseball and hard feelings over one political misstep.

Her replacement will not yield the same power, and this diminishes the Democrats' influence in the Senate whether or not they are able to gain numerical control.

Ironically, the 33 to 11 vote by the TNDP Executive Committee gave Barnes a larger margin of victory (22 votes) than Kurita got in the primary. It helps that they were the votes that actually counted.

The TNDP decision leaves it up to a trilateral convention (Cheatham, Houston, and Montgomery counties) to decide who goes on the ballot in November. In effect, a handful of party officials and insiders will pick the 22nd district's state senator. They could make it right by restoring Kurita to the ballot, but judging from how this appears to have been engineered that doesn't seem likely.

News coverage:

• The Leaf Chronicle: Kurita election invalid

• The Leaf Chronicle: Hearing laced with politics

• The Tennessean: Democrats reject Kurita win

• Knoxville News Sentinel: Panel rules Kurita's victory invalid

Kleinheider:

• The Show Trial At The Sheraton: Rosalind Answers For John Shelton

• Alma Sanford Renounces Her Party Affiliation After Kurita Decision