Provisional & Absentee Ballot Increases May Mean Close State Contests Cannot be Called on Election N

[helderheid]

Provisional & Absentee Ballot Increases May Mean Close State Contests
Cannot be Called on Election Night

Dear Election Accuracy Advocates,

In states like CO and FL where strict matching rules have been used to
purge voters, more eligible voters than ever before in history will
cast provisional ballots that are *not* counted on Election Night.

Recent implementation of no-fault absentee voting in many states,
together with the rational distrust of e-ballot voting machines, and
election officials who have encouraged voters to vote absentee in
order to reduce lines on Election Day have all combined to greatly
increased the use of absentee ballots that are also *not* counted on
Election Night.

The logical consequence is that the rate of absentee and provisional
ballots may have overtaken the unofficial reported margin between
candidates in several States.

It is therefore very likely that the press and candidates will *not*
be able to call close elections in several states on Election Night -
and must wait days or possibly weeks until sufficient absentee and
provisional ballots are evaluated for eligibility and counted or even
possibly contested by candidates.

To be sure to accurately call the winner of any close State election
contest, press and candidates must do the following little numerical
comparison first:

IF the total number absentee and provisional ballots cast in any
election contest in any State

is greater than

the difference between the unofficial reported votes for a winner and
the runner-up

THEN the candidate and the press will have *in*sufficient information
to determine the winner.

This will be a uniquely new situation in the 2008 election as the rate
of provisional and absentee voting overtakes the margins between
candidates.

Unfortunately election officials do not customarily publicly report
the number of provisional and absentee ballots.

Although election officials do not routinely report these numbers,
election officials do have the number of uncounted provisional and
absentee ballots at their finger-tips because the number of
provisional ballots are counted and reported from each polling
location to each county election office and county officials have a
count of the absentee ballots.

Open records requests rather than simple requests may have to be made
immediately on Wednesday a.m. or even now prior to Election Day in
order to obtain this information (the number of uncounted provisional
and absentee ballots) on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning from
election officials.

IF the difference in unofficial reported votes between the top two
candidates is less than the number of provisional and absentee ballots
cast statewide in an election contest (any contest, not just
presidential contests),

THEN the candidate and press shown as the runnerup should wait until
after all provisional and absentee ballots are counted (and if the
uncounted ballots are more than the margin contest the eligibility of
those ballots) before naming the winning candidate.

This situation (more provisional and absentee ballots than the
unofficial margin) could possibly occur in several swing states,
including Ohio, Florida, and Colorado - in any state that is
particularly close.

An estimate could be done now to determine which states are more
likely to be impossible to call the winners on Election Night by doing
open records requests to determine the number of voter roll purges and
absentee ballots mailed out and received as compared to the opinion
poll margins and expected turnout for each state. (I don't have the
data or resources to do this estimate myself now, but it might be easy
enough to do.)

The 2008 election is the first election since the passage of the 2002
Help America Vote Act where all States are now purging their e-voter
rolls and in which more states than ever now allow no-fault absentee
voting, so there *will be more absentee and provisional ballots than
in any election in U.S. history*.

Candidates and press will want to determine whether or not the number
of uncounted provisional and absentee ballots exceeds the reported
margins state-wide for all close election contests before calling the
winners.

This waiting period before calling the contests in some swing states
would also provide time for election integrity advocates with the help
of attorneys to make open records requests for detailed vote count
data and election records that can be mathematically analyzed to
detect any patterns that are consistent with possible machine vote
miscount.

With the number of provisional and absentee ballots possibly exceeding
margins of victory nowadays for the first time in U.S. history, and
with the machine vote counts in virtually all states not being
subjected to independent scientific post-election manual audits, it is
vital for candidates and the press to wait for sufficient information
before calling winners in any close State contests.

See http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ for lists of news articles on
the amount of e-voter roll purges and the use of provisional ballots.

Please forward this email to press and to candidates' campaigns for
their consideration.

Thank you.

-- Kathy Dopp