Provisionsal Ballots

Provisional Ballots

The Nuts and Bolts of Casting a Provisional Ballot

What is unique about the provisional ballot?

What happens to the provisional ballots?

What Are Provisional Ballots?
A voter’s name must be in the poll book for him or her cast votes on the voting machine. A provisional ballot is a potential remedy for voters whose names do not appear in the poll book at their assigned polling place. A provisional ballot looks and functions like an absentee ballot in that it is a pre-printed paper form which a voter fills out with a pen, puts in an inner envelope which has no identifying information and then puts in an outer envelope which does include the voter’s name and address for verification purposes. Although provisional ballots are new to Pennsylvania, they have been used in other states to protect the rights of registered voters in a similar fashion to Pennsylvania’s prior Election Court appeal procedure.

What are Provisional Ballots Replacing?
Before the Provisional Ballot provision became effective for the 2004 election year, Pennsylvania law permitted a person who claimed to be an eligible voter, but whose name did not appear on the registration rolls for their assigned voting division, to go to an Election Court, file an affidavit and present evidence on the record of their registration status before a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. If the person presented sufficient evidence, the Judge would issue an order which permitted them to return and vote on the voting machine for their division. If the evidence was insufficient to establish that the person was a registered voter, the individual would not be allowed to vote at all in that election.

For Philadelphians, this was a reasonably good system because we have a sufficient number of Judges to staff approximately two dozen election courts located in neighborhoods around the city. For residents of other PA counties, resort to this remedy was not as convenient as the other Courts of Common Pleas generally chose to staff only one court room in the county seat, so that a resident in Montgomery County who did not appear in their precinct poll book would have had to travel to Norristown for the chance to appear before a Judge and seek an order permitting them to vote. Although election courts will continue to exist to address other Election Day issues, provisional balloting will entirely replace this system of voter appeals.

The Nuts and Bolts of Casting a Provisional Ballot
Who gets provisional ballots?
(1) Any individual who claims to be properly registered and eligible to vote at an election district, but whose name does not appear on the general register and whose registration cannot be determined by the election inspectors or the county election board; (2) any voter required to present proper identification who fails to do so, or whose identification is challenged by the judge of elections; (3) any individual presenting a judicial order to vote.

What is unique about the provisional ballot?
First, before voting a provisional ballot, the elector is required to sign an affidavit affirming his or her name, date of birth, and residence at the time of registration. After casting the ballot, the voter will place it in a secrecy envelope. This envelope is then placed in a provisional ballot envelope, which the elector will be asked to sign. All ballots will remain sealed and then returned to the county board of electors.

What happens to the provisional ballots?
Within three business days, the county board of elections will examine each ballot envelope to determine if the individual voter was entitled to vote at that district at the time of the election. If the individual was entitled to cast their vote as such, the signature on the ballot envelope will be compared to the signature that voter submitted upon registration. If the signatures match, the ballot will be counted as usual. In addition, if the voter is determined to have been eligible to vote, but not at the election district where the ballot was cast, that portion of the ballot that the individual would have been eligible to vote in his proper election district will still be counted. A free access system, reachable by toll-free phone call or through the internet, will be available to voters who wish to track the status of their provisional ballots and will provide reasons for all provisional ballots that are eventually rejected.

Half Full: The One Advantage of the Provisional Ballot System

You’ll save the shoe leather (or gasoline) and time which would have been required in the past to go to an Election Court and seek a judicial order permitting you to vote.

Half Empty: The Multiple Drawbacks of Using a Provisional Ballot

From a personal point of view, provisional ballots present the following risks:

1) Your votes may be totally disallowed - if you are a registered voter in New Jersey, you moved to Pennsylvania near the registration deadline and your change of address was not processed before the Pennsylvania deadline, the logic of provisional ballots would seem to suggest that at least your vote for President would count since this is a national office. This is not the case as a provisional ballot cast in one state cannot be counted in another state;

2) Your votes may be partially or total disallowed depending on county of residence and county of registration - if you are registered in one PA county, but cast a provisional ballot in another PA County you would expect that at least your votes for President, U.S. Senator, PA Attorney General, PA Auditor General, PA Treasurer and the statewide ballot question will be counted (legislative district votes will count if both polling places are in the same legislative district). For the 2004 Primary at least, the answer is.It depends. The law permits provisional ballots to be transferred to and counted by counties which are part of the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors system (SURE) mandated by the HAVA legislation. Although the term Statewide suggests that every PA County is included, this is not yet the case. Eight counties, including Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery are not yet part of the system which is still in the process of replacing county voter registries. Both the county of residence and county where the provisional ballot is cast must be on SURE for the votes to be counted. Since the only Southeastern PA County on the SURE system at this time is Bucks County, residents who are registered in one SE PA county, but vote provisionally in a different SE PA county will get a rejection letter even though they are registered Pennsylvania voters and it is physically possible to confirm their registration status with the county of registry and send their ballot to the appropriate municipality to be verified and counted.

3) Partial disallowance of votes if you go to the wrong polling place - if you use a provisional ballot from a different part of the city (e.g. by voting provisionally in Center City when you live in Northeast Philadelphia) your votes for State House, State Senate, and U.S. House, Convention Delegates, Alternate Convention Delegates, and Republican State Committeepersons will not be counted to the extent the ballot you use is different from the ballot for your residence. Voting in the wrong legislative district is possible even if you go to the polling place closest to your home (as opposed to the assigned polling place a couple of blocks away), as Philadelphia residents using absentee, alternative and provisional ballots will use one of 92 different ballots for this election;

4) Paper ballots create the risk of overvoting - A stray mark (or an attempt to correct an accidental “vote” by checking your preferred candidate and crossing off or notating the mistake) may lead to the disallowance of a vote.

5) Provisional ballots can be lost, destroyed or misplaced between the ballot being cast and the conclusion of the final count – on Election Day thousands of ballots will be handled by thousands of poll workers at 1681 locations around the city.

From a systematic point of view, provisional ballots present the following risk:

In competitive races, election results can be substantially delayed. - When a large number of absentee and alternative ballots are cast there has always been the potential for public uncertainty between completion of the machine count and the paper count - the addition of hundreds or thousands of provisional ballots per County (including those which are ultimately found to be invalid) will increase the potential in every election that the number of paper ballots exceeds the margin of victory when the machine count is completed.

Challenges to Provisional Ballots
Provisional ballots are used to insure that registered voters are not denied the right to vote because they are not listed in the District Register-Pollbook, are unable to provide approved identification at the poll, or are incorrectly told they are ineligible by polling place officials (i.e. at a primary, voter is incorrectly told s/he is not registered with a political party). Provisional ballots are counted separately from voting machine tallies by the Philadelphia Board of Elections.

For the May 15, 2007 Primary Election, the official vote counting begins at 9:30 AM on May 16, 2007, at the Board of Elections Hearing Room, located at 520 N. Delaware Ave., 5th Floor.

Timeline for challenging provisional ballots: 1
1. Within seven calendar days of the election, the Board of Elections will examine each provisional ballot envelope to determine if the person was entitled to vote in that election district

a. One representative for each candidate and each political party can be present for this determination, and may challenge any ballot determination made by the Board at that time.

2. A hearing must occur within seven days of the challenge, at which time the Board will make a formal determination based on testimony presented.
3. The Board’s decision may be appealed by petition to the County Court of Common Pleas within two days of the decision.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Provisional ballots are a convenient, but potentially risky, remedy for registered voters whose names do not appear in the poll book on Election Day. You can most effectively protect your rights (and expedite the vote counting process) by 1) verifying your registration status and confirming your polling location in advance; 2) carrying your voter registration card or an alternative form of approved identification to the polls on Election Day; and 3) voting early in the day and giving yourself sufficient time to address any HAVA related complications you may encounter at the polls.

Life is full of uncertainty, but taking the steps necessary to make your choices and press the green “vote” button on Election Day is the best way to know your voice has been heard and your votes have been counted.

1. See generally 25 P.S. § 3050 (2005).