Tag Archives: provisional ballots

Voting and Vote Counting 101

By tmess2 | Published October 20, 2024

Once again, we are facing the possibility that early election returns on November 5 will be very misleading.  In large part, this is due to the efforts of one candidate (he who shall not be named) to demonize one form of voting which means that there will likely be significant partisan differences based on the mechanism showing.  This problem is made worse by certain states which would rather make voting difficult in the name of preventing the tiny amount of fraud that exists rather than actually preventing fraud.

There are basically four types of voting in the U.S.:  1) Absentee/Mail-in voting; 2) Early (in-person) voting; 3) In-person (election day) voting; and 4) provisional voting.  Each state has slightly different rules for these types of voting.  This difference is most pronounced for absentee and early voting.  For early voting, the difference mostly comes down to the period for early voting (when it starts and when it ends) and the days/hours when early voting locations are open.

For absentee voting, there are two big areas of difference.  First, states differ on whether a reason is required for an absentee ballot and what reasons are accepted.  While almost every state now allows early voting, many states still require an excuse before a person can cast an absentee ballot.  Second, there is a wide variety of rules governing the deadline for casting an absentee ballot.  The big difference is whether the ballot must be received by election day or merely postmarked by election day.  However, six states (Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and West Virginia) require any absentee ballot dropped off by the voter to be dropped off by the day before the election, and two states (Louisiana and New Hampshire) require any ballot mailed to be received by the day before election day, and three states (North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah) require that mail-in ballots be post-marked by the day before the election.       Overall, thirty-five states are “received by” states and fifteen states (and the District of Columbia) are “post-marked by” states (but each of these states have a different post-election deadline for the receipt of ballots).  Of the crucial states (at least at the presidential and Senate level), only Nevada, Ohio, and Texas are “postmarked by” states. Continue Reading...

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Every Vote Counts — Spawn of Satan Edition

By tmess2 | Published August 12, 2018

Tuesday night saw two very, very close elections.  In a special election in a deep red U.S. House district in Ohio, the Democrat is currently trailing by about 1,500 votes before provisional and the remaining absentee ballots are counted.  In the Republican primary for Governor, Secretary of State (Spawn of Satan) Kris Kobach is leading current Governor Jeff Colyer (who only recently replaced Sam Brownback as governor) by approximately 110 votes as mistakes in the numbers on the Secretary of State’s website are being corrected.

What comes next in both states is slightly different as the process of counting the votes is governed by state law.  In both states, the current count does not include provisional votes — those cast by voters whose names were not on the precinct roll or who lacked proper ID — and late arriving absentee votes (as long as postmarked before the election).  Kansas has a shorter time-frame for these issues.  In Kansas, all absentee votes must arrive by the Friday after the primary and the counties will begin their official canvass — which includes counting all valid provisional and absentee votes this upcoming week (August 13-16).  In Ohio, those who cast provisional ballots have until seven days after the primary (August 14) to submit supporting documentation (e.g., show up with valid ID) to their local election authority and any absentee ballot received by ten days after the primary (August 17) counts with the canvass beginning on the 18th.

Because Ohio has such a long time for absentee ballots to arrive, we still don’t know how many ballots we are dealing with in Ohio.  We know that there are around 3,000 provisional ballots.  We also know that there are over 5,000 people who applied for absentee ballots who did not return them by election day.  How many of those 5,000 absentee ballots are in the mail is the unanswered question.  Generally speaking, provisional ballots tend to lean Democratic but absentee ballots are more of a mixed bag.  In Kansas, there were approximately 9,000 provisional ballots and current estimates are that around 6,000 of those provisional ballots are for the Republican primary.  (As should not be surprising, about 3,500 of the 9,000 are in Sedgewick County — Wichita — and Johnson County — affluent suburban Kansas City with another 1,400 in Douglas — Lawrence/University of Kansas — and Shawnee — the state capitol of Topeka and Wyandotte — less affluent Kansas City suburbs.  The next largest county has about 200 provisional ballots).  I have not seen any count of absentee ballots. Continue Reading...

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