2004 Ohio Irregularities - Provisional Ballots

From dKosopedia

Ohio 2004 Elections

Elections: US Senate,

Irregularities: Details, Provisional Ballots, Recount, Spoiled Ballots, Chances of Winning

Ohio State Dems: "Provisional ballots will be counted."

Ohio State Dems: "County Boards of Elections have until Friday to verify the eligibility of those who cast a provisional vote. Counting will begin, Saturday, November 13. County Boards have until. Dec. 1, 2004 to certify their vote totals and report them to the Secretary of State."

There are currently 155,428 provisional ballots. The way they will be counted is to first examine them to see if they are valid, and to then tally the remainders.

• Composition: Provisional ballots were more likely to happen in Democratic counties. Details in Ohio Provisional Composition. This could be because Democrats were targeted, but it could also be explained by Democrats being more likely to have inaccurate registration data (for instance, due to moving more often). But it also means that provisional ballots are expected to benefit Kerry. If provisional ballots merely mirror the vote breakdowns in their respective counties, Kerry would make up about 300 votes. But most expectations are for him to make up several thousand votes, since the majority of provisional ballots might have been in certain Dem-heavy precincts in those counties.

• Judging: Ohio passed a law saying that provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct would go uncounted. This was part of a contentious pre-election lawsuit. Blackwell, who is the Secretary of State as well as the chair of the Ohio Bush/Cheney campaign, was in favor of the precinct rule. Democrats wanted provisional ballots to be accepted at any precinct in the same county. This could reduce the number of valid ballots.

In addition, Blackwell is allegedly changing the rules on how to count the provisional ballots, making birthdates required after they weren't required when the ballots were cast. However, as of Friday, Blackwell is evidently allowing those ballots.

Ohio State Dems: "Two Democrats and Two Republicans sit on each County Board of Elections."

Ohio State Dems: "Tabulations of the votes will be done in a bi-partisan manner. Only if there is a tie vote on the board does the decision go to the Secretary of State."

Cobb and Badnarik are asking the Secretary of State to recuse himself from the process for this reason.

Ohio State Dems: "We have made no official decision on a Blackwell recusal." (source)

Common Cause has decided to join in asking Blackwell to recuse himself - see diary

Rumor is that so far, most of the provisional ballots are valid. Estimates are between 75% and 80%. This article has an update of the provisional validity rate. Evidently they were around 85% valid in the Gore election. (Can someone supply a source for this?)

• Counting: Some people believe that provisional ballots will pretty much mirror the state results, while others believe they will advantage Kerry. It seems most provisional ballots come from Democratic counties. There was one report that in 2000, provisional ballots went to Gore by 85%. Is this true and can someone find a source? If they go to Kerry by that margin, he would eat into the margin significantly.

However, if provisional ballots mirror state results, then it would be much less of a gain. Kerry-voting counties had a slightly higher rate of provisional ballots, so when the percentage-Kerry vote of each county is applied to the number of provisional ballots in each county, it results in Kerry eating into the margin by about 301 votes overall, given a 90% validity rate.

Ohio voters who have cast provisional ballots can call (866) OHIO-VOTES (source) to find out if their vote has been counted.