Democrats in Memphis, Tennessee, are suing the local elections agency over last month’s voting results, claiming they became tainted by hackers.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit consist of nine Democratic candidates who lost their bids for public office.

Among them is Joseph Brown, the star of the syndicated television show “Judge Joe Brown,” who lost his race for district attorney general to the Republican incumbent, Amy Weirich. Brown, who had spent about $12,000 on his campaign compared to $350,000 by Weirich, was credited with 50,223 votes to Weirich’s 94,324.

Brown and his co-plaintiffs claim Memphis’ voting system made by Diebold “has long been tainted through fraudulent programming introduced into the system by hackers conspiring with the defendants,” which include the Shelby County Election Commission, according to the lawsuit.

“The system can be reprogrammed such that votes are siphoned away from specific candidates and either hidden or given to specific others,” the complaint reads, according to the Memphis Daily News.

The suit claims that the Diebold voting machines have “incurable deficiencies…including an inability to secure it from even amateur level taint by fraudulent programming.” It also points out that the Diebold system that was employed in the contested election is used nowhere in the United States except for two counties in Tennessee, one of which is Shelby.

The plaintiffs are seeking an inspection of election records and “a vote recount and/or the setting aside of the election results as they are individually affected and a declaration declaring them to have won the election,” according to the lawsuit.

Election commission chairman Robert Meyers rejected the allegations that the commission has rigged the voting tally, calling the litigation “frivolous.”

The Daily News’ Bill Dries noted that “the claim is the latest in a series of county election legal challenges since 2006 led by Democratic nominees for county offices, all of which have failed.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, Danny Biederman

To Learn More:

Nine Losing Candidates Challenge August Vote (by Bill Dries, Memphis Daily News)

Ex-TV Judge, Eight More Claim Election Fraud (by Kevin Lessmiller, Courthouse News Service)