
In
elections in the United States, a provisional ballot (called an affidavit ballot in New York) is used to record a vote when there are questions about a given voter's eligibility that must be resolved before the vote can count. The
federal Help America Vote Act of 2002
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (), or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the United States House of Representatives, House 357-48 and 92-2 in the United States Senate, Senate and was signed into law by George W. Bush, Presid ...
guarantees that, in most states, the voter can cast a provisional ballot if the voter states that they are entitled to vote.
Some of the most common reasons to cast a provisional ballot include:
*The voter's name does not appear on the
electoral roll for the given
precinct
Precinct may refer to:
* An electoral precinct
* A police precinct
* A religious precinct
* A shopping precinct or shopping mall
** A Pedestrian zone
Places
* A neighborhood, in Australia
* A unit of public housing in Singapore
* A former elect ...
(polling place), because the voter is not registered to vote or is registered to vote elsewhere
*The voter's eligibility cannot be established or has been challenged
*The voter lacks a
photo identification document (in jurisdictions that require one)
*The voter requested to vote by
absentee ballot
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online votin ...
but claims to have not received, or not cast, the absentee ballot
*The voter's registration contains inaccurate or outdated information such as the wrong address or a misspelled name
*In a
closed primary (limited to members of a
political party), the voter's party registration is listed incorrectly
Whether a provisional ballot is counted is contingent upon the verification of that voter's eligibility, which may involve local election officials reviewing government records or asking the voter for more information, such as a photo identification not presented at the polling place or proof of residence.
Each state may set its own timing rules for when these issues must be resolved. Provisional ballots therefore cannot usually be counted until after the day of the election.
History
The right of
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
to have observers at
polling places is long-standing. One of the established roles for such observers is to act as challengers, in the event that someone attempts to vote at the polling place who is not eligible to vote.
Before the implementation of provisional ballots, some state laws allowed a voter whose eligibility was challenged to cast a ''challenged ballot''.
After the polls closed, the canvassing board was then charged with examining the challenged ballots and determining whether the challenge was to be upheld or not.
The Help America Vote Act brings a degree of uniformity to the array of various challenged ballot rules enacted by various states. For example, each state must provide a means for the voter to find out whether his or her ballot was counted, though the states may use different ways of doing so (such as a website or a phone number).
Though the Act mandates the use of provisional ballots nationwide, it exempted the six states that had been exempted from the
National Voter Registration Act of 1993
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act, is a United States federal law signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, that came into effect on January 1, 1995. The law was enacted und ...
because those states had and continue to have either "same-day"
voter registration or no registration requirement at all:
Idaho,
Minnesota,
New Hampshire,
North Dakota,
Wisconsin, and
Wyoming.
However, those states may choose to use provisional ballots. , North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming used them for some purposes, while the other three did not have provisional ballots at all.
Potential problems
In the 2018 midterm elections, both valid and invalid provisional ballots were mixed together in Florida after the initial vote count, which provided no way to be separated for the recount.
Computer scientist and election official
Douglas W. Jones has criticized the offer of a provisional ballot as "a way to brush off troublesome voters by letting them think they have voted." He expressed the concern that, under some states' laws, casting a provisional ballot at the wrong precinct would
disenfranchise voters who could have cast valid ballots had they been redirected to the proper precinct.
Academic research has suggested that provisional ballots tend to lean more toward the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
than the electorate as a whole, and that this contributes to a phenomenon, first identified by
Edward Foley known as "
blue shift
In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in fr ...
," under which Democrats increase their share of the vote as more ballots are counted. This can potentially result in a different outcome from the one indicated by the initial count on the night of the election. Some experts on voting have suggested that this shift could be misunderstood and lead to erroneous claims of
electoral fraud
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
or
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
.
Rates of acceptance
According to the Election Assistance Commission thousands of provisional ballots are not counted each election.
The
2004 US Presidential Election
The 2004 United States presidential election was the 55th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. The Republican ticket of incumbent President George W. Bush and his running mate incumbent Vice President Dick Chene ...
was the first presidential election conducted under the Help America Vote Act's provisions. Nationwide, at least 1.9 million provisional ballots were cast, and 676,000 were never counted due to various states' rules on counting provisional ballots.
Studies of the use of provisional ballots in the
2006 general election in the United States show that around 21% of provisional ballots were rejected. About 44% of these were cast by voters who were not registered, but many other rejections were for reasons that were "preventable," such as an incorrect precinct or missing signature.
[Provisional Voting: Fail-Safe Voting or Trapdoor to Disenfranchisement](_blank)
Advancement Project
Sept. 16, 2008
The rates of rejection vary widely across the states, with some states counting all or nearly all provisional ballots while others reject more than half.
References
External links
(''
The Cincinnati Enquirer'')
"KERRY WON OHIO - JUST COUNT THE BALLOTS AT THE BACK OF THE BUS"(by
Greg Palast)
"20 Crucial Electoral Votes May Be Stuck in Limbo"(''
Washington Post'')
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