15. Provisional Ballots

VOTELAW – Listing of articles involving provisional ballots.

http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/election_administration/provisional_ballots/

Kerry Won (Greg Palast)

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad.  But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent.  Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state. So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten,"  November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new. The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Two-thirds of provisional ballots rejected (St. Petersburg Times Online)

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/04/State/Two_thirds_of_provisi.shtml

TALLAHASSEE - Nearly two-thirds of the provisional ballots cast in Florida on Election Day were not counted, mostly because the people who filled them out were not registered voters, officials said Monday.

County elections officials said 27,742 provisional ballots were cast, with 9,915 counted and 17,827 rejected. The numbers may be revised but are not expected to change dramatically, officials said.

Provisional ballots are used when poll workers cannot immediately confirm that a person wanting to vote is properly registered. They are counted if the voter's eligibility is established; otherwise, they are tossed out.

According to an analysis by the Tallahassee Democrat , slightly more than 7 percent of the provisional ballots cast Nov. 2 were tossed because voters had been purged from the rolls, either because they had not voted in the past two federal elections or were found to be felons whose right to vote had not been restored.

Suit: Check Provisional Ballots (Associated Press)

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65851,00.html

CLEVELAND -- A watchdog group sued Friday to try to stop Cuyahoga County's elections board from rejecting thousands of provisional ballots until they are hand checked against voter registration cards.

People for the American Way Foundation said the board wrongly relied only on computerized registration records, which are compiled from the cards and could contain errors such as misspellings.

Provisional ballots are cast when voters say they are properly registered but precinct workers can't find their names on their registration lists.

Two-thirds of the 24,472 provisional ballots cast in Cuyahoga County were later found to be valid, but the other 8,099 were thrown out, mostly because the people who cast them were not found on the county's computerized records.

The national civil rights group filed the suit in the 8th District Court of Appeals against Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Blackwell's office did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The county board said declined to comment until it has reviewed the suit.

The lawsuit also seeks to give voters the chance to have their provisional ballots counted if they cast ballots in the wrong precinct without being directed to the correct one. An appeals court found last month that a provisional ballot cast outside a voter's home precinct isn't valid.

According to unofficial tallies, President Bush beat Democrat John Kerry in Ohio by 136,000 votes. Kerry has conceded not enough outstanding votes exist to sway the election his way in the key battleground state. The deadline for counties to complete their official counts is next Wednesday.