NC: Candidate may file suit over handling of provisional ballots

[Carolab]

Provisional ballots solve, create hassles

Plan promotes turnout, but hand counting causes delays, errors

MARK JOHNSON

Raleigh Bureau

The elections team from Durham County was ahead of the vote counting curve -- or crash, depending on your perspective.

Durham elections director Mike Ashe remembers listening as one of his board members, Carol Anderson, spoke up among several hundred elections officials from across the state in a UNC Law School lecture room in Chapel Hill last summer. Anderson worried aloud about a looming explosion in "provisional" ballots, prompted by a 2-year-old federal law.

That anxiety turned into reality in some counties, including Mecklenburg, over the past two weeks when a glut of provisional ballots gummed up the vote counting, contributing to delays and confusion in getting a final tally.

Bill Fletcher, the Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, said he will decide by or on Wednesday whether to file a lawsuit over the handling of provisional ballots. Fletcher lost by such a narrow margin that the race is being recounted. The recount is scheduled to be done by Wednesday.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10171127.htm?1c

[booksenkatz]

1. Hand counting may cause delays and errors

Hand counting may suck.
Hand counting is not ideal.
But
Give me a handcount, give me something physical to count, any day, over a machine "recount" that is the equivalent of me hitting calc on my Excel spreadsheet over and over again.

The only real problem with these hand counts is that the waiting frustrates everyone and pushes them towards black box voting.

[The Flaming Red Head]

2. Provisional voters are supposed to be provided toll free number

Or do they follow this law (HAVA) only when it benefits the system?

SEC. 302./a> <<NOTE: 42 USC 15482.>> PROVISIONAL VOTING AND VOTING INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS.

At the time that an individual casts a provisional ballot, the appropriate State or local election official shall give the individual written information that states that any individual who casts a provisional ballot will be able to ascertain under the system established under subparagraph (B) whether the vote was counted, and, if the vote was not counted, the reason that the vote was not counted.
The appropriate State or local election official shall establish a free access system (such as a toll-free telephone number or an Internet website) that any individual who casts a provisional ballot may access to discover whether the vote of that individual was counted, and, if the vote was not counted, the reason that the vote was not counted.