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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / The reality of provisional balloting

The reality of provisional balloting

by Kay|  March 7, 20128:58 am| 47 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

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Collateral damage in the voting wars:

Paul Carroll, an 86-year-old World War II veteran who has lived in the same Ohio town for four decades, was denied a chance to vote in the state’s primary contests today after a poll worker denied his form of identification, a recently-acquired photo ID from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The poll worker rejected the ID because it did not contain an address, as required by Ohio law.
Carroll told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he got the ID from the VA after his driver’s license expired because he doesn’t drive anymore:
“My beef is that I had to pay a driver to take me up there because I don’t walk so well and have to use this cane and now I can’t even vote,” said Paul Carroll, 86, who has lived in Aurora nearly 40 years, running his own business, Carroll Tire, until 1975.
“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.”

I was on a conference call with Sherrod Brown last night on voting rights, and Brown mentioned this story. It’s the second voting rights conference call I’ve been on with Sherrod Brown this year, and because Brown was a Secretary of State in Ohio and actually understands voting process as it applies to real live voters, the discussions are practical and worthwhile.

Brown’s focus is on the attempt to limit or end early voting, because early voting is a real success for voting enthusiasts. Early voting means access to voters who may not be able to get to the polls on election day. Early voting means that if a voter has not successfully jumped through the series of hoops that conservatives are setting up and is denied a ballot, the voter will find that out and have an opportunity to remedy that situation prior to election day.

We also discussed the many, many problems with provisional ballots. Provisional ballots were sold to the public as a back up to a regular ballot, but that’s a false guarantee. The rules for provisional balloting are complicated, voters and poll workers don’t understand the rules, and poll workers cannot and do not apply the rules consistently.

If you’d like to know how bad the provisional balloting situation is on the ground, this is a federal opinion that came out of a disputed judicial election in Ohio recently (pdf).

Read it and weep:

First, 27 provisional ballots that were cast at the Board’s office, but in the wrong precinct. The Board determined that the poll worker erred in giving the voter the incorrect ballot.
Second, 686 provisional ballots that were found to include contradictory information regarding whether the voter provided identification. The Board determined that the poll worker erred in indicating that further information was required.
Third, 13 provisional ballots that had either no voter signature or only a partial name or no printed name in the affirmation. The Board determined that the poll worker erred in requiring the voter to vote a provisional ballot.
Fourth, 4 provisional ballots in which the ballots themselves were from the wrong precinct but the envelopes were from the correct precinct. The Board concluded that poll-worker error was responsible for this defect.

Voters who should have been given regular ballots were given provisional ballots. Provisional ballots were accepted in the wrong precinct. Poll workers and voters had little or no understanding of the complicated provisional balloting process, a process that in Ohio can involve 9 steps. We know this because they told us, but we know this only because this was a close election, and poll workers and voters were called to testify. The provisional balloting process was chaos. Poll workers admitted it, and voters confirmed it.

Blithely directing voters to stop complaining and accept a provisional ballot is not a solution to the voting restrictions conservatives are setting up all over the country. A provisional ballot is not a worthwhile guarantee or reliable back up to a regular ballot. It’s a false assurance.

In this judicial election in Ohio, voters left the polling place believing they had voted, and believing that their vote would be counted. Now, due to poll worker error and mass confusion regarding provisional ballots, their vote may or may not be counted. Voters should know that the provisional balloting process has multiple steps, many more than with a standard ballot, and voters should know that at each step poll worker error or unacceptable individual poll worker discretion can enter the process. We know that because poll workers and voters told us all about it in this case in Ohio.

Before we assure voters we’re protecting their rights with provisional ballots, perhaps we should look on the ground in an actual close election and see if what we’re telling them about the reliability and consistency of the provisional balloting process is true. If it isn’t true, and it certainly wasn’t true in this 2010 election in Ohio, voters shouldn’t rely on it.

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Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    butler

    March 7, 2012 at 9:05 am

    Holy Shit! Joe the Plumber actually won his primary last night, and he’ll be going against Kaptur in the Ohio 9th.

  2. 2.

    DS

    March 7, 2012 at 9:07 am

    Wait. So this guy was disenfranchised at the polls, but was probably going to vote for Republicans? The dissonance, it burns. Irony.

  3. 3.

    kay

    March 7, 2012 at 9:10 am

    @butler:

    She’ll slaughter him.

  4. 4.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    March 7, 2012 at 9:12 am

    The sooner we start a movement to print out ID cards at the voting site, the better. Type in your social security number and mother’s maiden name, and boom, out comes your card.

  5. 5.

    gbear

    March 7, 2012 at 9:16 am

    I linked back to the source article for that story, and the comments were running 100% in favor of denying the guy the right to vote because he didn’t follow the rules. I’ll confess that I didn’t read very far into the comments. For those commenters, the right to vote was no more important than the right to drive.

  6. 6.

    bemused

    March 7, 2012 at 9:20 am

    Pissing off senior citizens is never a good idea. Even if republican, many of them can be very unforgiving if they feel disrespected enough and hold grudges.

  7. 7.

    Nicole

    March 7, 2012 at 9:25 am

    This may be a stupid question, but does requiring an address on the ID mean Ohio is disenfranchising the homeless?

  8. 8.

    RossInDetroit

    March 7, 2012 at 9:26 am

    @DS:

    So this guy was disenfranchised at the polls, but was probably going to vote for Republicans?

    Good point. The law was probably intended to exclude poor people with no driver’s license. Apparently if the Greatest Generation is getting blocked as well the parameters need some tweaking.

  9. 9.

    kay

    March 7, 2012 at 9:31 am

    @gbear:

    He didn’t want a provisional ballot, and I don’t blame him. It’s ridiculous to me. Voting has turned into an adversarial process, where we’re testing voters on how cheerful and compliant they are, whether they’re “worthy” of us grudgingly allowing them to vote. It’s backward.

    They’re the point of this whole exercise. That’s gotten completely lost.

  10. 10.

    kay

    March 7, 2012 at 9:39 am

    It occurred to me last night that conservatives could fix the problems with provisional balloting, because they know which poll workers are making the errors, and they know which precincts are shunting voters who should have gotten a regular ballot to provisional ballots. But they don’t. Fix it. The only reason we’re handing out all these provisional ballots is because conservatives insisted on voter ID. That created the problem. Now that they’ve made a mess, they won’t fix it.

    Voter ID is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and provisional balloting is the fake-fix to the problem created by voter ID.

    It gets dumber and dumber, and further and further from reality, which is not surprising, because the whole thing was premised on a lie.

  11. 11.

    rikyrah

    March 7, 2012 at 9:39 am

    as someone who deals in elections, I thank you so much for your continued service in pointing out all the ramifications of these voter suppression tactics.

    provisional ballots are BULLSHIT.

    BULLSHIT, people.

    fight to the death before you allow folks to give you a provisional ballot.

    the BEST percentage I’ve seen, personally, of provisionals being accepted is 50% –

    50%

    that’s the high mark.

    folks… talk to your people…. talk to the elders…make sure they’re registered…and get them an absentee ballot if you have to.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 7, 2012 at 9:47 am

    @kay:

    Voter ID is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and provisional balloting is the fake-fix to the problem created by voter ID.

    Oh, it’s a solution to a problem, for Rethuglicans. People voting for Democrats.

    Furthermore, this situation proves, once again, that government simply does not work. Mainly because Rethuglicans monkey with it to make sure it doesn’t work.

  13. 13.

    ant

    March 7, 2012 at 9:50 am

    here in wisconsin, im on a auto absentee list. they send it in the mail every election.

    this year, they changed it, so that i have to go down to the village hall, and show my id in the beginning of each year, to get sent the ballots for that calender year.

    she needed to have a photo copy of my id on file now.

    the lady seemed kind of frustrated with all the new rules, and she made it clear that they would prolly change again.

    “who knows what the procedure will be next year” she said.

    I got the impression that she is a conservative, but was committed to doing her job the best she could.

    really nice and helpful lady.

  14. 14.

    terraformer

    March 7, 2012 at 9:50 am

    As Kay said, the genesis of this entire issue is that because Republicans aren’t popular and often lose when their ideas are in sunshine, they have created a meme that voter fraud is rampant and threatens to destroy us all.

    What I don’t get is why there isn’t a push by sane people in positions of power and influence to point this out officially, loudly, repeatedly and with prejudice every chance they get? I mean, here is a pretty cut-and-dried, transparent non-issue foisted by Republicans that is costing millions of dollars to “address”, which results in people who should be able to vote not being able to, which also makes those people distrustful of not only voting but also of our government, and which makes the general populace complacent and with a general attitude of “why should I vote”? I just don’t understand it.

  15. 15.

    kay

    March 7, 2012 at 9:54 am

    @terraformer:

    It’s getting better. It used to be 100% conservatives screaming voter fraud. Now it’s about 90 conservative to 10 liberal.
    Talking Points Memo has done more than any other single outlet to actually explain voting process and law, IMO. TPM is an absolute gift to voting enthusiasts. So, we’re not out yet.

  16. 16.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    March 7, 2012 at 9:57 am

    @kay:

    If you just print the id onsite, you take away the issue entirely.

  17. 17.

    ant

    March 7, 2012 at 10:01 am

    and then, we have erick erickson, who voted for the texas tard yesterday, who blogged:

    I wasn’t going to vote at all. But then all sorts of people, including Donna Brazile and Sean Hannity, started in on me about my “civic obligation.” Frankly, I wish less people voted.

    there you have it.

  18. 18.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 7, 2012 at 10:02 am

    @kay:

    Voting has turned into an adversarial process, where we’re testing voters on how cheerful and compliant they are, whether they’re “worthy” of us grudgingly allowing them to vote. It’s backward.

    We are headed toward Bertolt Brecht territory: the people
    have forfeited the confidence of the government and can win it back only by redoubled efforts.

  19. 19.

    Schlemizel

    March 7, 2012 at 10:02 am

    You keep saying “collateral damage” I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

    This is a feature for the GOP, not an coincidence.

  20. 20.

    jim filyaw

    March 7, 2012 at 10:05 am

    there’s certainly a method to this madness. the republicans (at least some of them) can read, and their future demographically is pretty damned dim. suppressing the vote is the only way they can hang onto power outside the mongoloid dominated areas of the old confederacy and the empty spaces of the midwest (where baptist churches and porno shops flourish).

  21. 21.

    Southern Beale

    March 7, 2012 at 10:10 am

    Oh hey I’ve got one for ya:

    Former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis said he and his wife Lynda were denied the right to vote Tuesday in his Fentress County hometown.
    __
    “We walked in and they told me I was not a registered voter. I had been taken off the list,” said Davis, who served two terms representing the fourth congressional district of Tennessee, leaving office in 2011.
    __
    “These are people who I grew up with. I told them I live here. I went to school about 20 yards away.”
    __
    Davis has been voting in Pall Mall, Tenn., since 1995, he said.

    And he was also denied a provisional ballot. A former CONGRESSMAN, who ended his term LAST FUCKING YEAR. Demcorat, of course.

  22. 22.

    General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)

    March 7, 2012 at 10:25 am

    Just got word of a win in WI, as a judge has blocked their (wingnuts) voter ID law, for the upcoming April 3 election.

  23. 23.

    RP

    March 7, 2012 at 10:30 am

    In order to protect the integrity of our democratic process, we must disenfranchise thousands and thousands of actual legitimate voters to ensure that no imaginary voter impersonation fraud occurs.

    So sorry, but it’s the law. /snark

  24. 24.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    March 7, 2012 at 10:37 am

    Mr. Carroll ought to be grateful to serve his country yet again. Because of his brave sacrifice, ten black folks were denied the ability to vote.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    March 7, 2012 at 10:37 am

    @General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):

    http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/judge-grants-temporary-injunction-barring-enforcement-of-voter-id-law/article_82e53b00-67c1-11e1-8ab3-0019bb2963f4.html

    Your ACLU dollars at work. Well done!

  26. 26.

    burnspbesq

    March 7, 2012 at 10:40 am

    @Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:

    Because of his brave sacrifice, ten black folks were denied the ability to vote.

    Is that something you can document, or are you just talking out of your ass?

  27. 27.

    Humanities Grad

    March 7, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Wow, I got away with voting illegally yesterday, and I didn’t even know it.

    I went to vote, not for the clown show primary (though since I was there I voted for Jon Huntsman–no possible harm could come from that), but for some local ballot initiatives.

    I’ve never shown my driver’s license before, because, well, principle. So when I wandered into the polling station yesterday, I gave them my faculty ID card from the state university where I work.

    Poll worker looked at it askance, but I buffaloed my way through with the argument that it’s a state-issued photo ID, and they let me vote. From Kay’s post, they clearly should’ve insisted on seeing my driver’s license, which means our laws are even more restrictive and dumbassy (is that a word) than I thought they were.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    March 7, 2012 at 10:52 am

    @burnspbesq:

    Because no one at Balloon-Juice is ever snarky.

  29. 29.

    Punchy

    March 7, 2012 at 10:53 am

    The poll worker rejected the ID because it did not contain an address, as required by Ohio law.

    Ohio are a bunch of rookies. Here in KS, Kris “middle name likely starts with K” Kobach wants voters to show proof of citizenship. Forget a DL, you gotta bring….uh….hmmmmmmm….I have no idea what you’d need to meet this requirement.

  30. 30.

    Nemesis

    March 7, 2012 at 10:53 am

    I live in the shit stain known as Ohio. In the past, I have voted absentee. I was on the list for absentee voting. As a result, I would receive my ballot though the mail about 6 weeks before the election. Not so anymore in a blatant attempt to discourage voting.

    Now, I must contact the BOE to request a form. Once I complete the form and return it in the mail, I reqeive a ballot in the mail. Many folks just wont bother.

    Its anti-American to discourage voting.

  31. 31.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    March 7, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Is that something you can document, or are you just talking out of your ass?

    @burnspbesq: How positively…uncivil of you, burnsie. About time you grew a pair.

    Kinda liking this version 2.0 of you. Stick around. We’ll have some fun.

  32. 32.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    March 7, 2012 at 11:01 am

    I have no idea what you’d need to meet this requirement.

    @Punchy: I’m betting that “requirement” begins and ends with white skin. If he gets ambitious/nostalgic it could possibly include an English literacy test as well.

  33. 33.

    gene108

    March 7, 2012 at 11:07 am

    @terraformer:

    A lot of people generally dig the idea of voter ID’s. For whatever reason it strikes a chord with a good chunk of voters.

    You can say all you want that voter fraud isn’t a problem, it’s just one of those things that seem like a good idea to people.

    You aren’t going to win people over with rational arguments.

    It’s sort of like how mandatory prison sentencing got created in the 1980’s. People felt like to solved something they objected to, such as crime, whether or not the facts bore them out or whether or not they were in a place, where crime was an issue was irrelevant. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

    Same with voter ID laws. It just seems like the right thing to do for many people.

    After all, what’s the harm? The thinking goes like this, “I and everyone I know has a driver’s license, which I carry on my person, whenever I leave the house, so it’s not a hassle for me, so why should it be a hassle for anyone else.”

    Also, too if it disenfranchises likely “Democrat” voters, what’s the down side for a right-leaning independent and/or right-winger?

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    March 7, 2012 at 11:07 am

    @Southern Beale:

    Don’t read the comments to that article. There’s some jackhole insisting that this is PROOF POSITIVE that Davis has been double-voting in both locations for decades. I shit you not.

  35. 35.

    Triassic Sands

    March 7, 2012 at 11:08 am

    Anyone on his or her way to the polls to vote for a Republican candidate for president doesn’t get my sympathy when he/she finds him/herself disenfranchised.

    And why should a card from the VA be any more special than a library card?

    I am a veteran, but I’m more than a little sick of the idea that being a veteran elevates people to some sort of special status. Many of the worst people I’ve met in my life I met in the military, which just happened to be the worst organization I’ve ever encountered.

    I support making it easy and free to vote in the US. If a state is going to require special identification at the polls, then an 86-year-old who no longer drives ought to be able to use his old license as voter ID, or get a new ID from the DMV for nothing. But, if the law says that ID has to have an address, then a VA ID that doesn’t have an address on it is worthless, and the fact that somebody spent some time in the military shouldn’t alter that.

  36. 36.

    PeakVT

    March 7, 2012 at 11:08 am

    @Schlemizel: In this case it’s collateral damage, because the stupid law took out a Republican.

  37. 37.

    gene108

    March 7, 2012 at 11:12 am

    @Nemesis:

    Its anti-American to discourage voting.

    It’s actually the American way.

    That’s why Catholics, Jews and all non-Protestant, non-land owning, white men were kept from voting in many states till the 1840’s or so, when Catholics gained the right to vote.

    It’s why we have an Electoral College, so the will of the mob couldn’t overwhelm the good senses of their betters.

    Universal suffrage and easy access to register to vote/voting are deviations from the norm in America that have occurred over the past 40 years or so.

  38. 38.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    March 7, 2012 at 11:21 am

    As I noted in a previous thread I wonder how this chap felt about the voter ID law this past Monday? If he is a Republican I don’t have much sympathy for him. He probably voted FOR the people who enacted this legislation.

  39. 39.

    jurassicpork

    March 7, 2012 at 11:25 am

    Speed Dating With Willard, whereby Jurassicpork taketh a page from the Rudest of Pundits with much vitriol and spleene (Advisory: So incredibly not work safe).

  40. 40.

    Mouse Tolliver

    March 7, 2012 at 11:46 am

    Why isn’t a voter registration card an acceptable form of ID? In my state a voter registration card is one of the documents you can use to get a photo ID. So why can’t you use it to vote?

  41. 41.

    Jax6655

    March 7, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    @Nemesis #30

    I absentee vote in OH as well. Sent the request for my ballot and never received it in the mail (still hasn’t arrived today). I had to find my polling place–haven’t voted in person in over 10 years. I explained that I hadn’t received my absentee ballot and the poll worker said that I should go downtown to the Board of Elections. Don’t know how that works for people who don’t have a car, or who aren’t self-employed like me and have to get back to the job. I had a DL and voter registration card but they wouldn’t let me vote on a regular ballot and made me take provisional because a big “A” was beside my name on the rolls. Now I read this about how my vote probably didn’t even count and I know I won’t vote provisional again.

    Luckily, as a Dem, all of the people/issues I voted for passed anyway. But still . . .

  42. 42.

    kay

    March 7, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    @Mouse Tolliver:

    Because the conservative claim is that voters are impersonating other voters.

    Really. That’s the claim. That we are walking in to a polling place and impersonating another voter. They use the term “voter fraud” but that’s misleading. If they used the accurate term, “voter impersonation fraud” they’d be asked some uncomfortable and embarrassing questions, because the premise is nutty as hell.

  43. 43.

    Hob

    March 7, 2012 at 1:09 pm

    I have to tell this story even though it reflects badly on me. In 2000, in Brooklyn, I volunteered as a poll observer for the first and only time. Several districts experienced massive and somewhat suspicious voting machine breakdowns in the morning, so we ended up with lines around the block (unusually high turnout, yay) and we were giving out backup paper ballots. Except the poll workers did not know what the fuck they were doing, so 1. they spent half the day giving out provisional ballots instead, even though these were people who were definitely registered. And 2. at the end of the day, after we finally closed three hours late, the least careless of the poll workers (ironically the one who was sent to us from the Board of Elections, even though in New York that’s generally a do-nothing patronage job) actually paid attention to the manual and informed the crew that we had to count those paper ballots then and there before we could report back… which was indeed true, that’s the law. At which point the whole crew mutinied and said they wouldn’t do it, why can’t we just put them in boxes and send them to City Hall; and the two cops who were there nodded and said “Oh yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do, we’ll take ’em” and the aforementioned conscientious person said “But but but, look here in the manual,” and everyone ignored her and let the cops take the ballots and went home. The other poll observer and I just looked at each other bleary-eyed and said “I don’t know wtf just happened, do you?” and then we went home too. The next day of course no one was paying any attention to Brooklyn, because of Florida. As far as I know no one ever looked into it, beyond a slap on the wrist for the mechanic who inspected the voting machines, and I’m pretty sure thousands of votes were just plain thrown away on my watch.

  44. 44.

    Hob

    March 7, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    Uh, I forgot to say the point of my story, which was that the most cost-effective form of election-rigging is just to make it so nothing works right and no one knows what to do.

    NYC is of course overwhelmingly Democratic, so no national or state-level races were really in play, but the nature of the machine breakdown was such that if you were in these districts and you tried to vote for any candidate on certain particular down-ticket ballot lines, the little switch wouldn’t turn. Many people undoubtedly just didn’t bother to vote for those offices (and when people finally started complaining about it, the aforementioned super-uninformed poll workers at first advised them to just try using a different machine; I was the one who blew the whistle on that, at least). And after we switched to paper, the long lines and short staffing ensured that not a lot of votes were going to get counted.

    I’ll never know if someone did some of this on purpose (I never followed up to find out what was up with those particular ballot lines and whether those races would’ve been greatly influenced by knocking out those districts) but it wouldn’t have been hard, and no targeting of individual voters was required.

  45. 45.

    IrishGirl

    March 7, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    I live in the Phoenix, AZ area and when I tried to vote in the 2008 Presidential election I was given a Provisional Ballot even though I had lived at my current address for more than a year (I owned the damn home), my driver’s license was up to date AND my voter registration card (and info) was up to date. Mother effers…I swear is was part of their plan to deny registered Dems the ability to vote.

  46. 46.

    Nemesis

    March 7, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    Shades of the ACORN scandal. An ACORN part timer who is working in the dog days of summer for $7/hr comes up with a great idea on day while resting his tired dogs at MickeyD’s. He spies a phone book at a pay phone. Hmmm…Why not sit in the cool comfort of the burger dispensary, copy names from the phone book, submit the names and give the appearance of working a full day? After a while, dude gets kinda bored copying the phone book and starts getting kinda lazy with his ruse. Decides to use cartoon characters names like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Yes those names were submitted to ACRON for registration. There is however ZERO evidence these bogus registrations were even accepted, much less did any of them vote. Its the perfect rw con. They lurve it when they can do this shit and get away with it. Makes us look stupid.

  47. 47.

    Jado

    March 8, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    @kay:

    But they don’t. Fix it. The only reason we’re handing out all these provisional ballots is because conservatives insisted on voter ID. That created the problem. Now that they’ve made a mess, they won’t fix it.

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

    GOVERNMENT IS BROKEN!! IT JUST GETS IN THE WAY!! WE NEED TO DEREGULATE EVERYTHING!!

    Sounds like they got everything they were hoping for…

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