General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy so many provisional ballots expected in Ohio?
They are saying 200,000 on MSNBC, how come?
sinkingfeeling
(51,482 posts)kerouac2
(449 posts)Supposed to be sent by request, but he decided to send them to everyone... which is something I've been pointing to for the past week as giving them a way to steal Ohio.
thereismore
(13,326 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)If someone received an absentee ballot but went to vote in person that person would be given a provisional ballet to ensure they didn't vote twice.
thereismore
(13,326 posts)Those were 7M absentee request forms. Lots of people sent them back in to get the ballot and then never filled them out. So when they show up at the polls, the only way they can vote is via a provisional ballot.
kerouac2
(449 posts)But the result was the same in the sense that he has this huge amount of potential votes hanging out there that can't be counted until 11/17. I had read that R's request absentee ballots more often than D's, so this could have stacked the deck R's favor by several points among those provisional ballots.
LisaL
(44,974 posts)Some people filled them out, got their absentee ballots but apparently didn't use them?
They could still turn them into board of elections today rather than voting provisional.
CincyDem
(6,407 posts)I think the issue started with those 7 million unrequested absentee ballot request forms. Typically (at least in past elections) you had to go find a request form...I think DMV, libraries, boards of election. This year - they just showed up.
A lot of people filled it out, not realizing what it was. Once that request was received and recorded, those folks are now slated to vote absentee.
The problem comes when they don't vote absentee, usually becuase that's not what they planned to do in the first place, and then show up at the polling place. On the voting page it lists that they have been sent absentee ballots. If you sign an affidavit that you didn't vote absentee, you can vote but it will be a provisional ballot.
The twist Husted added last week was that, contrary to Ohio statute, he has distributed provisional ballot forms with the instruction that the voter is responsible for the correctness of the ID information AND correctly indicating which ID was used on the form. By law, that is an obligation of the board of elections (in the person of the poll workers) so there are a lot of challenges floating around.
As I understand it, Ohio will not start counting provisionals until 11/17 by which time they will be able to confirm that you didn't vote absentee and, technically, they can then count your provisional. Court challenges should be resolved by the 17th regarding the caliber of the information on the provisional request.
If we're lucky - none of this will matter and the Ohio results will only be the difference between something like 330 vs 348. Important in knowing the final number but not important in the overall results.
justabob
(3,069 posts)in a "computer glitch"?
hack89
(39,171 posts)Ohio mailed out millions of absentee ballot applications. If someone received an absentee ballot but went to vote in person that person would be given a provisional ballot to ensure they didn't vote twice.
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)LeftinOH
(5,359 posts)several people (here in OH) at the polling place this morning with provisional forms; people who have lived in this neighborhood at least as long as I have. Confusion reigned; the aged and befuddled volunteers had no idea what those forms were for. The whole purpose is to make already-bewildering process even more complex.