Voting experts: Comment on this pg1 NYT story re. provisional-ballot probs

[DeepModem Mom]

Thanks!

A Rule to Avert Balloting Woes Adds to Them
By FORD FESSENDEN

Published: August 6, 2004

....Provisional voting, the centerpiece of the Help America Vote Act that Congress passed in 2002, will be put into effect across the nation in the coming presidential election in an effort to ensure that more votes are counted.

But election officials say the experience of Mr. Pierce (Kelly Pierce of Chicago had his March primary paper provisional ballot thrown out because poll workers had him file it in the wrong precinct) - and hundreds like him across the country during primary season - show how failures in carrying out the measure could end up disenfranchising voters instead.

All but a handful of states have passed legislation creating some form of provisional balloting. Most states adopted the new rules to make a deadline to get federal election money this year.

An examination of those rules, however, shows there is no uniformity in how they are applied. Some states, for example, allow provisional ballots to be counted even if they are filed in the wrong precinct, but at least 16 states, including Illinois, throw them out.

And few states have worked out the details of how to train workers to carry out provisional balloting and other voting changes, setting up the potential for a protracted ballot-by-ballot fight in any election that is close....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/politics/campaign/06vote.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. posted early -- kicking --