The “Maybe” Votes
For a variety of reasons, including clerical errors and erroneous list maintenance procedures, eligible, registered voters may arrive at the polls and discover that their names are not on the official voter rolls.
To counter this risk, Congress included a “fail-safe” provisional voting requirement in the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Election officials are required to provide provisional ballots to individuals who are not listed on the official list of registered voters. These ballots are only counted once election officials determine that the individual is indeed eligible to vote.
But provisional voting has been widely overused, and has proven unreliable. Some poll workers have failed to offer provisional ballots to voters at all. In other cases, states have applied such varying methodologies for counting provisional ballots that tens of thousands of ballots have not been counted at all.
States have a responsibility to adopt best practices that decrease reliance on provisional ballots, and increase the likelihood that such ballots will be counted.
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Dangerous Election Bills Introduced in Virginia
The Virginia General Assembly is busily grinding out bills that will make it considerably more difficult for Virginians to cast ballots that count. In recent years, voter ID laws have cropped up in states across the country, aimed to stymie a source of fraud that simply does not exist, and Virginia is no different. Under current law, if a voter does not or cannot produce appropriate identification at the polls, the voter can simply sign a sworn document attesting his or her identity, then cast a regular ballot. Proposed legislation in both the House of Delegates and the Senate aims to take this option away from Virginia voters and place still more stringent restrictions on the kinds of ID that are accepted. Read more
New Memos Assess Election Laws in 11 States
In preparation for the 2010 legislative season, Project Vote’s Election Administration (EA) Program is releasing a series of election administration... Read more
Arizona City Tries New “Voting Center” Model for City Elections
Here's an interesting way one Arizona city is dealing with early voting and provisional ballot problems, at least in their city elections. The city council of Phoenix has approved an election plan that would essentially eliminate the need to designate polling places during local elections. The plan is currently being reviewed by the Department of Justice and is expected to go into effect with the next mayoral election in 2011. Read more