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Provisional ballots may decide outcome for some elections
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At 7:55 on election night last week, five minutes before polling in California closed, a man rushed into the Ventura County Elections Division office and demanded his opportunity to take part in a historic presidential election.
He acknowledged he was not registered but insisted he be allowed to vote. To avoid a confrontation, a clerk gave him a provisional ballot, one that will be thrown out after it is reviewed because the man was not legally entitled to vote.
Under less urgent circumstances, in firehouses and churches and schools across California, such scenes were no doubt repeated thousands of times last week. People who never registered, caught up in the excitement of Election Day, still insisted on casting votes.
"Provisional ballots are a fail-safe option for poll workers who don't have time to deal at length with one person," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.
To avoid a polling-place confrontation, an individual whose name is not on the voter roster is simply given a provisional ballot. Sometimes those people are not entitled to vote and their ballots will ultimately be discarded.
"I suspect that happened to a much greater degree in this election than in others," Alexander said.
Reviewing one by one
That might partly explain the unprecedented number of provisional ballots cast in California last week: nearly three-quarters of a million statewide, up from about a half-million four years ago. A rush of last-minute registrations might also help explain the surge. So might the fact that young voters, who tend to move more frequently, turned out in great numbers.
What percentage of these ballots is legitimate and what percentage is not?
No one yet knows, but the answer might ultimately decide the outcome of close elections, including the 19th Senate District contest in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where Republican Tony Strickland and Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson are separated by a hair's-breadth margin.
There are 12,916 such ballots in Ventura County and an additional 6,336 in Santa Barbara County. All have been set aside since Election Day, pending completion of the count of late-arriving mail ballots. But soon, perhaps beginning in the middle of this week, election officials will start reviewing them one by one, under the watchful eyes of attorneys and operatives from both political parties.
Alexander said that historically about 80 percent of provisional ballots are legitimate. They were cast by people who registered too late to be included on the roster of voters at their precinct, or those who voted at the wrong polling place, or those who moved and forgot to update their voter registration.
Jackson could benefit
Democrats believe those provisional ballots in the 19th District will favor Jackson.
"A lot of these ballots are from young people who are renters and forget they have moved two times since they last registered," said Democratic Party political adviser Bob Mulholland. "Some of these college kids move three or four times a year, or every time they have an argument with their roommate. They don't remember where they were living when they registered."
Provisional voters, Mulholland said, "tend to be young. And along the coast, that means they're overwhelmingly Democratic."
If a voter was legally registered in the county where the ballot was cast, his or her vote will be counted even if the ballot was cast at the wrong precinct. Election officials will disregard votes in contests involving local districts beyond the voter's residence, but they will tally votes for president, state ballot propositions and districts that include the voter's residence.
About 76 percent of Ventura County voters and about 79 percent of Santa Barbara County voters live in the 19th Senate District. If the provisional ballots in those two counties are distributed proportionately, that means about 15,000 are from the district.
Both sides believe those votes could break in Jackson's favor.
"I'm definitely scared of that universe," said Strickland consultant Joe Justin.
Republicans monitor count
Parke Skelton, chief consultant to the Jackson campaign, said he believes a high percentage of provisional ballots in Santa Barbara County came from the neighborhoods around UC Santa Barbara.
"One weird thing we kept hearing on Election Day from Isla Vista is that voters who were on the supplemental roster were given provisional ballots," he said. The supplemental roster includes names of those whose registrations were processed in the final days of the registration period, which ended just 15 days before the election.
"Anecdotally, our precinct watchers told us about 1 in 10 ballots in Isla Vista was provisional," he said. "There were a lot of pink envelopes up there."
Since those precincts went heavily for Jackson, Skelton thinks she can "make up a couple thousand votes on the provisionals."
Hector Barajas, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, said the party will devote resources to help monitor the vote-counting. The purpose, he said, will be twofold:
"We want to make sure everyone's vote counts and make sure no shenanigans are going on with our Democratic friends."
Posted by Nosmo_King on November 11, 2008 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Wow! Bob Mulholland basically described young democrats as irresponsible.
said Democratic Party political adviser Bob Mulholland. "Some of these college kids move three or four times a year, or every time they have an argument with their roommate. They don't remember where they were living when they registered."
Posted by KatieTeague on November 11, 2008 at 8:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I believe it is the provisionals that will end up deciding this election. Much is made over the Absentee Ballot count and the back and forth lead between Jackson and Strickland but I think it will be a wash. Keep your eye on the provisionals.
Posted by JohnAlamillo on November 11, 2008 at 8:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
camdadddy-
" ...they really need to start researching the candidates and the issues."
Something we agree on.
Posted by Nosmo_King on November 11, 2008 at 8:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
well said camdaddy.
Posted by cassandra2 on November 11, 2008 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, I regularly hear from elder knee jerkers on this comment board all the time.
Painting young college students with a broad brush, especially because they move a lot, is kind of ugly. UCSB students are among the brightest in the state and often research diligently rather than taking their talking points from Murdoch's minions.
Posted by Legs on November 11, 2008 at 9:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with Cassandra2 here - many older folks, secure in their wealth, stick with GOP politics in an effort to retain what they have earned. Voting along party lines. I am not saying it's wrong, it's just that they're doing the same thing they accuse others of doing.
Some of them just don't see it as partisan!
Posted by Equitable_Enforcer on November 11, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Our son is a UCSB graduate and a proud Army veteran. While at UCSB, his conservative views were strengthened by what he said were unthinking and robotic actions from those on the left who seemed always to be marching in lock-step for some cause.
Of mixed race, as is Obama, our son came home one weekend with a tale of horrer. Because of a Hispanic name on one side of the family, aggressive attempts were made to recruit him into a "minority" program, where they'd make numbers and money from his participation. Then and now, he simply stated that he is an American, period.
These idiots who call Obama "black" have missed an opportunity to bring closer together the races in our country. Instead of the "black" candidate, which is he not, he'd have done more for the country by claiming that he is an American of mixed ancestry --- which is a powerful plus for our nation. Obama, his worshippers, Jackson, Sharpton, et al, keep living in the past.
Posted by Equitable_Enforcer on November 11, 2008 at 9:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Legs, you used a powerful word: "earned"
Another word to describe those of us who wish to protect our assets is "innovative"
Some innovate the means to create wealth in manufacturing, agriculture or conversion, such as petroleum/mining/forestry all of which create real jobs --- while others, many of whom are bitter failures, join the liberal bandwagon of wealth redistribution --- a great way to take away incentive to get ahead through education and hard work.
Posted by harlan on November 11, 2008 at 2:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"We want to make sure everyone's vote counts and make sure no shenanigans are going on with our Democratic friends."
This is rich. It's akin to Charles Manson expressing concern that someone in his cell block might be a murderer.
Posted by cassandra2 on November 11, 2008 at 3:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nice one, Harlan.
Posted by cassandra2 on November 11, 2008 at 6:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, I picked up this story on Yahoo. The "newsperson" interviewing the Minnesota governor seemed in a rush to judgment and I wondered. Seems that some precinct flunky stashed away some absentee ballots, like 30, in his/her car and forgot to turn them in until the next day. Yoicks.
But the thing with absentee ballots is that they are eminently traceable. You know who wrote them and it's not hard to find out if they are legit or not. If you are going to cheat this is not the place to do it Indeed, the place to do it is where the Repugs stole the last prez election, mostly through the electronic voting machines where there is no possibility of tracing the theft.
The count anomalies the governor spoke about but had little chance to explain are more serious but the "newsperson" wasn't interested in this. I wondered about that. Then I connected with the plastic appearance of the newsie--fake blonde, overly made-up, and checked where the story was coming from. The rush-to-judgment lady spoke from Fox News. Plastic news from plastic people for plastic people.
I can't imagine Franken as a senator, but I think it would behoove us all to wait till the fat lady sings for real before deciding what it means.
Posted by cassandra2 on November 11, 2008 at 6:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Parenthetically, I am so pissed off at voter fraud I want anyone committing it fried and I don't care whose side they are on.
And yes, Dogear, particularly voter fraud in Mexico which delayed the fake final count there. What? Are they learning how to do it from us?
Posted by Nosmo_King on November 11, 2008 at 8:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I was gone for awhile...is Cassandra pushing for voter ID?
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