Throwing out provisionsal ballots because not registered violated HAVA.

[Eric J in MN]

from: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/hava/HAVA_2002.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
HAVA states in section 302 (PROVISIONAL VOTING AND VOTING INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS.)

(3) An election official at the polling place shall transmit
the ballot cast by the individual or the voter information
contained in the written affirmation executed by the individual
under paragraph (2) to an appropriate State or local election
official for prompt verification under paragraph (4).

4) If the appropriate State or local election official to
whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted under
paragraph (3) determines that the individual is eligible under
state law to vote, the individual's provisional ballot shall be
counted as a vote in that election in accordance with State law.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Eligilbe is not synonymous with registered. To cast the provisional ballot, a person has to state he or she is eligible AND registered.

For the vote to count, however, they only need be eligible.

The idea is that anyone who in good faith believes he or she is registered should be able to cast a provisional ballot, and if it turns out that person isn't on the list because of a clerical error or whatever, the vote SHOULD count.

The AP writes, "No registration is main reason provisional ballots thrown out" in Ohio.
http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/news/stories/20041116/localnews/1599347.html



Please contact anyone who can help with this (Ohio ACLU, Ohio Democratic Party, Kerry campaign)


Ohio ACLU:
http://www.acluohio.org/
Max Wohl Civil Liberties Center
4506 Chester Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44103
[phone] | Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]


Ohio Democratic Party
http://www.ohiodems.org
271 E. State St. Columbus, Ohio 43215
614-221-6563 (voice)
614-221-0721 (fax)
[e-mail]

[bearfan454]

1. Goodpoint n/t

[indy_azcat]

2. HAVA a nice day

Glad to see I'm not the only one to read it :)

[Eric J in MN]

4. indy_azcat - you're the one who gave me the tip (nt)

nt

[BlueDog2u]

3. Kick!

Someone send this the DNC lawyers in Ohio.

[Massacure]

5. Send it to the third parties as well - they are paying for the recount!

[Eric J in MN]

6. If you wnat to contact the David Cobb, Green Party campaign,

http://www.votecobb.org/contact

need to raise $150,000 - $113,600 filing fee plus expenses such as candidate travel and staff.

Volunteer Coordinator - Holly Hart
319-337-7341 (Iowa)
[e-mail]

Campaign Manager - Lynne Serpe
Cell: 646-202-0825 (New York)
[e-mail]

Media Coordinator - Blair Bobier
Office: 541-929-5755 (Oregon)
[e-mail]

Bookkeeper - Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap
[e-mail]
California

[Carolab]

7. Eric--send it to

the Attorney General in Ohio, Jim Petro. Or CALL him.

http://www.ag.state.oh.us/contact/contact.htm

[e-mail]

[Eric J in MN]

Done, thanks (nt)

nt

[Eric J in MN]

10. This webpage lists the Ohio Attorney General email

http://www.shelbymm.lib.oh.us/gov/gov.html

without the j in front.

Are you sure it's
[e-mail]

and not just
[e-mail]

[indy_azcat]

8. Mixing threads, I know...

and not to throw the focus off of Ohio, but Ohio seems to still be having a fairly high rate of legit provisionals... 81%?

I wonder what the 50% rejection in NM is due to? Eligible but not registered? Hmmmmm....


... and others too! Federal trumps state laws, verdad?

[Carolab]

9. CHECK THIS OUT

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/news.html

Ohio Democratic Party Sues Secretary of State Over Provisional Ballots
11/16/04 (10:23 a.m. ET) - The party seeks to join pending Schering suit, which argues that lack of clear, uniform standards for evaluating the eligibility of provisional ballots violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

[Jasper 91]

11. Have these discounted provisional ballots just been set aside

So they can be counted, if this comes to pass, or have they already been destroyed?

[Eric J in MN]

12. Good question.

Ideally, they would just be set aside in case there are appeals, but I don't know.

[bones_7672]

13. Sorry, incorrect

In Ohio you have to be registered. HAVA did not change that. You MUST be registered for your ballot to count.

[LiveInHope]

14. New Mexico should look into this

They had to throw out thousands of provisionals (democrat of course) because the people thought they had registered but found out their registrations mysteriously disappeared.

[bullimiami]

15. Im sorry but for me this is a pretty weak argument

They will just point out that to be "eligible under state law to vote" you must be registered.

There are a lot of real fraud and disenfranchisement issues with a lot firmer ground to fight than this one.

[Eric J in MN]

16. OK, that is another interpretation, but

let me ask this:

A man sends in a regsitration card.

The clerk mistypes his name such that it can't be found on the registration list.

Does the man have the right to vote?