The Prattville Progress reports: While more than one-fourth of Autauga County's eligible voters went to the polls on Tues­day, the race to determine the Republican candidate for coun­ty school superintendent could be decided by just over one-tenth of a percent of those vot­ers.

The validation or rejection by county Republican officials of eight provisional votes could provide school system person­nel director Greg Faulkner with the margin he needs to pre­vent a July 15 runoff with Pratt­ville High School Principal Lee Hicks. ...

Based on preliminary vote to­tals, Faulkner is headed for a showdown with Hicks to decide which of them would face Dem­ocrat Purvis Johnson in No­vember. Faulkner received 49.95 percent of the 6,571 votes cast in Tuesday's three-candi­date GOP primary and fell just short of a majority that would have given him the party's nomination out­right. --

Hat-tip to Doc's Political Parlor for the link.

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NPR's Morning Edition reports: With lots of new voters showing up at the polls for this year s primaries, election officials are also seeing many problems. Some people are going to the wrong polling sites; others can t find their NAMEs on voter registration lists. Still others don t have the proper ID. The fallback for these voters is often something called a provisional ballot. But those votes do not always count.

Cecilia Martinez is executive director of The Reform Institute, a non-profit group that helps operate a national voter assistance hotline, 866-MyVote1. The hotline has received thousands of calls so far this year from voters. Many are trying to find out where they are supposed to go vote. But Martinez says many others have encountered problems.

Oftentimes what happens is when a voter goes to the polls, and they have registered, but they for whatever reason are not listed on the registration rolls, they are supposed to be voting provisional. That s sort of the backup plan, she says. -- Pa. Officials Pin Hopes on Provisional Ballots : NPR

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Rep. Rush Holt has introduced the Provisional Ballot Fairness in Counting Act of 2007, H. R. 4145. Here is the most important provision: Section 302(a)(4) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 15482(a)(4)) is amended to read as follows:
`(4) The provisional ballot of an individual who is a registered voter in a jurisdiction in a State and who is eligible to vote in an election for Federal office in the State shall be counted as a vote in such an election if the appropriate State or local election official to whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted under paragraph (3)--
`(A) in the case of an election for electors for President or for the office of a Senator, determines that the individual is registered to vote in the State in which the provisional ballot is cast; and
`(B) in the case of an election for the office of a Member of the House of Representatives (including a Delegate or Resident Commissioner to the Congress), determines that the individual is registered to vote in the Congressional district in which the provisional ballot is cast.'.

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The Birmingham News reports: Birmingham mayoral candidate Patrick Cooper plans to deliver a letter to election officials today urging that they count provisional ballots of people who voted in the wrong precinct Tuesday.

Election officials have said that, according to state law, voters must vote in their assigned precincts or their votes will not be counted.

Cooper says the federal law that created provisional ballots, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, was designed to eliminate the problems created when election officials change polling places or district lines and create confusion about where people are supposed to vote. ...

However, state and local officials say a state law that went into effect this year requires that voters cast their ballots at the precinct where they have been assigned to vote. Those voters who cast ballots at one precinct but are listed in another will not have their ballots counted, according to election officials. -- Cooper cites U.S. voting law- al.com

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The Beaumont Enterprise reports: Provisional ballots are designed to be the last resort to insure that a vote that should count actually does.

But in the recent Jefferson County election, Port Arthur resident Virginia Dudley's provisional ballot was rejected even though it probably should have counted.

In the May 12 election, the county received 55 provisional ballots and all but eight were rejected. ...

While provisional ballots are designed to be foolproof, studies show that they are an increasing problem.

Nationwide one out of three or 650,000 of the 2 million provisional ballots cast in 2004 were uncounted or discarded, according to a report produced by Demos, a New York-based non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization. -- The Beaumont Enterprise - Studies show provisional ballots an increasing problem

Thanks to Scott Novakowski of Demos for the link.

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AP reports: Ohio's new elections chief ordered the state's 88 boards of elections Thursday to record all provisional ballots on paper, beginning with the first elections after the May 8 primary.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said electronic machines assign each provisional voter a number that is printed on a paper record in each machine, putting ballot secrecy at risk if a recount occurs. If the number is visible while votes are being counted, it would be possible to learn the identity of the voter.

A provisional ballot is cast when a voter does not have suitable identification or if the address on the voter's ID differs from the one written in precinct poll books.

Most counties still use paper for provisional ballots, said Matt Damschroder, director of the Franklin County elections board and president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Elections officials should have no problem making the switch, he said. -- Beacon Journal | 04/06/2007 | Provisional ballots must be on paper

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AP reports: The U.S. Department of Justice has settled voting rights claims against Cibola County.

The department announced Wednesday it had settled allegations that the county violated the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act. Those claims had been added to a lawsuit alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act, which originally was filed in 1995, attorney Joe Diaz of Albuquerque, who represented the county, said Thursday.

Justice Department oversight of elections in the county will be extended through 2008 under a consent decree with the county. ...

Federal law requires counties to hire interpreters and translate ballots and other election material into Indian languages. In the case of Cibola County, officials must provide voter information and assistance in Navajo and Keresan to voters who need it.

The Justice Department alleged the county failed to ensure that valid voter registration applications were processed and added to voter registration lists in a timely manner; that voters' names were not removed from the rolls without cause; and that provisional ballots were offered at elections to voters whose names were not on the voter rolls. Provisional ballots are counted after the election once officials determine the person is a qualified voter. -- 4:44 pm: Justice Department settles Cibola County voting rights claim

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WISH-TV reports: The verdict is still out in the race for the seat in the State House of Representatives on the south side of Indianapolis. Democratic incumbent Ed Mahern trails Republican Jon Elrod by just five votes. However there are seven votes not in the final total that could change the outcome.

Several hundred provisional ballots in Marion County are still being sorted. There are four provisional ballots in District 97 that have not yet been counted and may not be. Those four voters did not have the proper id on Election Day. But it is not too late for those votes to be counted..

"They have until Friday at noon to bring that identification, to bring that id to the clerk's office, show it to us. If they do that we will open the ballot and get it counted," Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler said.

Democrats are working to find those voters to urge them to get to the clerk's office. Those votes could potentially change the results. ...

The Democrats want the courts to get involved and open those ballots, again potentially changing the outcome of the race. Republicans say the Democrats do not have the right to ask the court to decide. -- WISH-TV - Indianapolis News and Weather - Parties Have 24 Hours to Submit Proposals on Absentee Ballots

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AP reports: Organizations that challenged Ohio's new voter identification law have reached an agreement with state officials on how provisional ballots from last week's election should be counted, the attorney general's office said.

The agreement was reached Tuesday after negotiations between Attorney General Jim Petro, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and groups challenging the law, Petro spokesman Mark Anthony said.

The agreement is the latest round of legal wrangling over the law, which required voters to show photo ID at the polls, and stemmed from Election Day confusion among some poll workers about what was considered proper ID.

Because of the confusion, poll workers did not allow some voters with proper ID to cast regular ballots, instead forcing them to cast provisional ballots, which generally are not counted until a voter's eligibility is verified.

Under the agreement, approved by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, provisional ballots cast in error will be counted without any additional investigation into their eligibility. -- Ohio ballot counting agreement reached - Yahoo! News

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The Baltimore Sun reports: Local election officials began the painstaking process yesterday of sorting through thousands of sealed provisional ballots that could determine the outcome of a Washington-area congressional race and at least two state legislative contests.

"I'm not sure how many [provisional ballots] we have because it took us three days just to get them out of all of the bags," said Jacqueline K. McDaniel, the director of elections in Baltimore County, where some races hang in the balance. "We know what we sent out, but we have to figure out how many are spoiled."

Provisional ballots are cast on paper and are most commonly used when a voter's eligibility is in question. But major mistakes during Tuesday's primary, including equipment that abruptly turned off or went missing, forced some precincts to rely on them for several hours. A few precincts ran out and resorted to instructing voters to write their choices on scrap pieces of paper.

State elections chief Linda H. Lamone has ordered local elections officials in Baltimore and three counties to draw action plans to make sure the problems are not repeated during the Nov. 7 general election. -- Provisional ballots getting close attention - baltimoresun.com

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AP reports: Secret ballots may not always remain secret under one of several proposals going before New Hampshire lawmakers seeking to tighten voting rules.

The House could vote as early as Wednesday on a bill that would allow certain ballots to be tagged and later removed if it is discovered that individuals voted improperly.

Opponents, including the secretary of state's office and town and city clerks, say so-called provisional ballots interfere with the cherished right to keep one's vote private. ...

The plan calls for ballots to be flagged when a voter shows up without proper identification and signs an affidavit to certify residence or citizenship as part of same-day registration. Those signing affidavits would be informed that their ballots are being tagged for possible later identification. -- Ballots could be tagged to fight fraud - Concord Monitor Online - Concord, NH 03301

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The Arizona Republic reports: The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that Gov. Janet Napolitano erred when she vetoed a bill that would have prevented people from casting a provisional ballot at a polling place if they could not produce identification.

Napolitano vetoed Senate Bill 1118 on April 1, saying that she thought it violated the federal Voting Rights Act because it might prevent registered voters from getting a provisional ballot if, for example, they were robbed of their identification shortly before the election.

Secretary of State Jan Brewer had pushed hard for the bill as a clarification to Proposition 200, which mandated identification at the polls.

On Friday, Brewer got a letter from Sheldon Bradshaw, a deputy assistant attorney general with the Civil Rights Division of Justice, who said Brewer's proposed legislation would not have conflicted with federal law. ...

The fact that the Justice letter was written by Bradshaw and not the head of the Civil Rights Division or the department's chief of the Voting Section could raise questions about partisan political maneuvering. According to a federal government Web site, Bradshaw was not even employed at DOJ at the time he wrote to Brewer. His letter is dated April 15, but a news release announced his hire as chief counsel for the Food and Drug Administration "effective April 1."

Bradshaw was also a central figure in the forced redistricting of Texas two years ago to create more Republican congressional seats. In that controversial decision, it was Bradshaw again, rather than a higher-ranking Justice official, who authored the letter that gave Texas lawmakers the go-ahead to redraw their districts. -- Governor erred in vetoing provisional-ballot bill, Justice official says

In addition, I wonder why the Justice Department would even give an opinion on a bill that has not been enacted.

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The New York Times reports: Two-thirds of the more than 1.6 million provisional ballots cast in last year's presidential election were counted, but there were wide differences from state to state. Alaska counted 97 percent of its provisional votes, Delaware just 6 percent.

The figures are from a study by electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for election information. It is the most comprehensive look yet at how states carried out the major change to grow out of the 2000 presidential vote in Florida, when administrative errors and voter registration database problems kept thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots.

In the 43 states where figures were available, provisional votes accounted for just over 1 percent of the total votes counted. In Alaska, 7.2 percent of all the votes counted came from provisional ballots, the highest of any state.

A law enacted by Congress in 2002 required all states to adopt procedures to allow people whose names are not on voter lists but who believe they are registered to cast ballots that can be checked later. Provisional voting "was a success in many ways in terms of what happened in 2000 when people were turned away and had no fail-safe way of voting," said Elizabeth Schneider, one of the authors of the study. -- The New York Times > Washington > Counting of 2004 Provisional Ballots Varied Widely, Study Finds

The study is here.

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AP reports: More than three months after the November election, state officials don't have a final tally of how many provisional votes were cast and counted in Texas.

Provisional vote totals remain in question for 29 counties. Local election officials had to report provisional votes in a lengthy federal survey. Some counties have not yet responded. For 10 of the 29 counties a computer registered the provisional vote total as zero, possibly inaccurately, Bill Kenyon, spokesman for the Texas secretary of state's office, said Monday.

The agency is following up with the 29 counties to verify their totals. ...

So far the tally shows that 35,282 provisional votes were cast statewide. Of those, 7,156 were determined to be valid and were counted. -- DentonRC.com | News for Denton, Texas | AP: Texas

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The Seattle Times reports: An unknown number of provisional voters, some of whom may not even have been registered to vote, improperly put their ballots directly into vote-counting machines at polling places, King County's elections superintendent said yesterday.

Once those ballots went into the machines, there was no way to separate them from legitimate ballots.

Provisional ballots are given on Election Day to voters who show up at the wrong precinct or whose registration is in question. The ballots are supposed to be put inside two envelopes, with the voter's name, address and signature on the outside, and counted only after the voter's status is verified. ...

Miscast provisional votes could be one reason the number of ballots counted in King County outnumbered the list of voters who voted by 3,539. -- The Seattle Times: Politics: Election scrutiny reveals provisional-vote flaws

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AP reports: Nearly two-thirds of provisional ballots cast on Election Day in Florida weren't counted, mostly because the people casting them weren't registered to vote, state officials said Monday.

Preliminary figures, culled by the state from county elections officials, showed that of 27,742 provisional ballots cast, 9,915 were counted and 17,827 were rejected. The number could be revised but isn't likely to change dramatically. ...

Court rulings last year held that voters must vote in their correct precincts in Florida. In most cases, people who showed up at the wrong precincts were directed to the correct ones, said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees elections. ...

An analysis by the Tallahassee Democrat, which polled counties about rejected provisional ballots, found that slightly more than 7 percent were tossed because voters had been purged from the rolls either because they hadn't voted in several years or were found to be ex-felons. -- State officials reject two-thirds of Florida's provisional ballots: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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AP reports: Voting and civil rights advocates contended Tuesday that the election did not go as smoothly as Americans might think.

Reports of long lines at some polling places, voting machine errors, absentee ballots that never arrived and problems with provisional ballots dominated a daylong conference Tuesday, and experts said more changes are needed to eliminate obstacles to voting.

"We learned on Election Day that our voting methods remain troubled and that many Americans continue to experience difficulty navigating a system that falls far short of our view of ourselves as the world's greatest democracy," said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree, who moderated the conference.

Registration problems were the most frequent complaint in 2004, according to a database kept by a coalition of voting rights groups. Some voters registered by the deadline but did not show up on voter lists, while others received cards with incorrect information. -- Conference focuses on 'troubled' voting system

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The Brennan Center has compiled a list of the litigation over provisional ballots this year. In addition to the case name, it contains the rulings, the parties, and their counsel, and any amici.

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The Raleigh News & Observer reports: A candidate for a Wake District Court judgeship has asked the N.C. Board of Elections to throw out about 1,400 votes cast in the wrong precincts.

The request is similar to one filed by a candidate for superintendent of public instruction, but in this case officials say they already know it would not change the outcome of the race.

Under the final vote count turned in to the state by the Wake Board of Elections, District Court Judge Kris Bailey lost his bid for re-election to Raleigh lawyer Debra Sasser by 322 votes.

According to the Wake County Board of Elections, if the ballots were not counted, Sasser's lead would narrow to 194 votes. ...

At issue are ballots cast by voters who showed up at the wrong polling place on election day. Under state law, those voters can cast a provisional ballot, but only races they were eligible to vote for are counted.

In his protest, Bailey argued that counting the so-called "partial ballots" violates the residency requirements spelled out in Article VI, Section 2 of the state Constitution. -- newsobserver.com | Local & State

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AP reports: A watchdog group filed a lawsuit Friday that seeks to overturn the rejection of thousands of provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County.

The county had the most provisionals in the state at 24,472, of which about 33 percent, or 8,099 ballots, were rejected, mostly because there was no voter registration record for the people who cast them.

People for the American Way Foundation wants the county board of elections to hand check the rejected provisionals against voter registration cards, instead of computerized lists compiled from the cards. ...

The lawsuit also seeks to give voters the chance to have their provisional ballots counted if they cast ballots in the wrong precinct without being directed to the correct precinct.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in late October that a provisional ballot cast outside a voter's home precinct isn't valid. -- AP Wire | 11/26/2004 | Lawsuit seeks re-examination of rejected Cuyahoga provisionals

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The News and Observer rounds up the election glitches in North Carolina: Statewide races for agriculture commissioner and superintendent of public instruction are still unresolved, in part because of 4,400 lost ballots in Carteret County. Republican Steve Troxler leads incumbent Democrat Britt Cobb by fewer than 2,300 votes. Both have filed election protests based on the foul-up. Bill Fletcher, the Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, wants the state courts to throw out votes -- known as provisional ballots -- in state and local races cast by about 10,000 voters who went to the wrong precincts.

Carteret County lost 4,438 votes during the early-voting period leading up to Election Day because a computer didn't record them. Three candidates for state offices have filed protests that cite the lost votes.

Cleveland County lost 120 ballots on the night of Election Day when workers retrieved a provisional ballot that had been fed by error into an optical scan machine. The ballots did not make it back to election headquarters. Local elections officials say they were left behind at the polling station and thrown away the next day. -- newsobserver.com | Local & State

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The Rocky Mountain News reports: Eighty percent of the provisional ballots cast in Denver on Election Day will be counted, officials estimated Tuesday.

That percentage falls in line with other metro counties, which had provisional-ballot acceptance rates ranging from 76 percent to 85 percent, county clerks reported. ...

In Colorado, voters can fill out a provisional ballot if they forgot their identification, if they requested an absentee ballot but didn't fill it out, if they are voting in the wrong precinct, or if they registered through a voter registration drive that failed to turn their registration in by the Oct. 4 deadline. -- Rocky Mountain News: Election

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AP reports: Democratic and Republican activists [in Washington State] spent a lot of time on the phone over the weekend, calling voters who cast provisional ballots that are in dispute.

People on each side of the governor's race are hoping that getting every last vote counted will help their candidate win.

Republican Dino Rossi has a lead of 1,920 votes over Democrat Christine Gregoire. About 42,000 ballots still have to be counted -- roughly 11,000 of them in King County.

Election results will be certified Wednesday. A recount is automatic if the margin of victory is less than 2,000 votes. -- .: Corvallis Gazette-Times :. News

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Greg Palast writes in In These Times: This past February, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell told the president of the State Senate, "The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state's primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity." Blackwell, co-chair of Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, wasn't warning his fellow Republican of disaster; he was boasting of an opportunity to deliver Ohio for Team Bush no matter what the voters wanted. And this past Election Day most voters in Ohio wanted JFK, not GWB. But their choice won't count because their votes won't be counted.

The ballots that add up to a majority for John Kerry in Ohio are locked up in two Republican hidey-holes: "spoiled" and "provisional." -- The Ballots at the Back of the Bus: Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry; here's how the votes vanished. -- In These Times

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The Charlotte Observer reports: 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. -- Charlotte Observer | 11/13/2004 | Provisional ballots solve, create hassles

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The Seattle Times reports; As Dino Rossi clung to a 1,920-vote lead over Christine Gregoire in the governor's race last night, Gregoire's allies won a court victory that could help them eke out a few hundred more votes in a race that still appears too close to call.

With about 40,000 ballots left to count nearly two weeks after Election Day, the situation remains unpredictable because Gregoire's percentage of the vote has been improving in the latest counts in some counties, including King. ...

King County Superior Court Judge Dean Lum ordered the county's elections division to give the state Democratic Party a list of 929 provisional-ballot voters whose ballots were rejected because of missing or mismatched signatures.

The party aims to use the list to contact voters over the weekend and try to resolve the signature problems so their ballots can be counted. Provisional ballots are used when voters cast ballots outside their regular polling place or when there are uncertainties about someone's eligibility to vote. They also include voters who requested absentee ballots but didn't receive them, so had to vote at the polls. -- The Seattle Times: Local News: Rossi leading; Gregoire allies win in court

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The Palm Beach Post reports: The vast majority of provisional ballots -- voters' last chance to have their voices heard -- were rejected, a review of the presidential election results from across the state found.

While most elections officials on Tuesday were still analyzing the reasons thousands of ballots ended up in the waste bin, they said the majority of rejected ballots were cast by people who simply were not registered to vote.

Other reasons ballots ended up in the trash: voting in the wrong precinct, signatures that didn't match those on file at the elections office and lapsed registrations because voters hadn't responded to address-verification requests and hadn't voted in at least four years.

Those who unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to give voters greater flexibility in casting provisional ballots said the high number of rejections signals a need to change Florida law. -- Most provisional ballots rejected; voters often in wrong precinct

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The Albuquerque Journal reports: If New Mexico is leaning red, it's not because the state is any closer to declaring a presidential winner. It's because some New Mexicans are embarrassed about how long it's taking to get the votes counted. Again.

"It's embarrassing to know this state has not been able to count all it's votes," said Tom Torres of Edgewood. "It's not like this is a surprise. We saw it last election."

In the 2000 election, it took about a month for the state to determine that Al Gore had defeated President George W. Bush by 366 votes.

Election officials said they are working to count all ballots by Friday in the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. In Bernalillo County, the actual counting of more than 13,000 provisional and in-lieu-of ballots might not start until Tuesday, election officials said. -- ABQjournal: N.M. Voters Red With Embarrassment Over Delayed Count

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The Billings Gazette reports: The provisional vote of a mentally handicapped elector who works at a sheltered workshop in Ronan could change the results of Tuesday's House District 12 race, where Constitution Party candidate Rick Jore now leads Democrat Jeanne Windham by a mere one vote.

The leadership of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance. If Windham wins, the House would be split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, allowing the newly elected Democratic governor to name the House speaker. If Jore wins, the House leadership will remain Republican.

Lake County election officials will meet today at 3 p.m. in the courthouse in Polson to determine which of the 33 provisional ballots cast in the HD 12 race will be counted in Tuesday's canvas of the election.

The handicapped elector's vote is likely to be one of the few provisional votes cast in the HD12 race that will be counted. At least 25 are expected to be rejected because the voters were not residents who registered to vote in Lake County.

The competency of the mentally handicapped elector was challenged by an election judge when the man went to vote. He was unable to sign the registration card legibly himself, so a sheltered workshop case manager did so for him. -- Provisional vote may swing election - billingsgazette.com

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The Sun Sentinel reports: Four Palm Beach County voters who appear to have voted twice in Tuesday's election face possible felony charges, elections officials said Thursday.

Days after the country survived one of the most contentious presidential races in history, local election officials said the State Attorney's Office would launch an investigation into why the four voted twice.

Three of the four voters are challenging that claim, blaming clerical errors at the Supervisor of Elections Office for the problem. -- 4 accused of voting two times in Palm Beach County: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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AP reports: Alabama election officials are preparing to count hundreds - maybe thousands - of ballots that have yet to be tallied from this week's vote and could sway the outcome of a controversial constitutional amendment.

In Jefferson County and elsewhere, workers plan to spend this weekend sorting through voter forms to determine which provisional ballots can be counted and included in official vote totals. The final tally will begin at noon Tuesday.

The results will be critical in determining whether voters approved or rejected Amendment Two, a statewide proposal that would delete segregation-era provisions from Alabama's Constitution but failed in the unofficial, incomplete count by only 2,494 votes out of the 1.38 million cast. ...

The key question concerns numbers: How many provisional ballots exist and how many will ultimately be counted.

If the primary vote is a guide, about half of the provisional ballots cast this week will wind up being counted. Of 977 provisional ballots in that vote, state election officials said 482 were proper and were included in the final tally.

But no one is certain how many provisional ballots are out there locked away in county courthouses. Since counties have not yet been required to determine the number of provisional ballots they had, many haven't. -- Welcome to TimesDaily.com

Amendment Two removed segregationist language from the the 1901 Constitution and repealed an amendment adopted in 1956 that removed the right to a public education. Deposed Chief Justice Roy Moore (one of the few people who was able to run to the right of a Karl Rove candidate) started the drum beat that the reinstatement of the right to a public education would allow an "activist judge" to order the state to raise taxes. Well, you might have well have said it would promote Satanism.

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The Arizona Republic reports: A national Hispanic organization filed suit in federal court this week seeking to force Arizona election officials to count thousands of so-called "provisional ballots" that were cast in the wrong precinct during Tuesday's election.

LULAC, the League of Latin American Citizens, claims in a U.S. District Court complaint lodged Monday that Arizona balloting procedures violate the Help America Vote Act and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Provisional ballots are issued when voters believe they are properly registered but their names do not appear on election rolls, or when there is some other electoral question. The ballots are not reviewed until all other votes have been counted, and election officials in each county must first determine which provisional forms must be disqualified.

Steven Reyes, a LULAC attorney, said Arizona's system disenfranchises voters and is not applied uniformly throughout the state. Because Hispanics move frequently and may have language difficulties, he added, a disproportionate number of their ballots are tossed out. -- LULAC demands count of provisional ballots cast in wrong precinct

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The Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier reports: The election's over. But there's still a few unanswered questions about voting in Black Hawk County [Iowa]. A few thousand of them.

As of this morning there were still 2,433 absentee ballots not yet returned, county elections manager Kyle Jensson said. But they're only trickling back. Just 53 came in Wednesday.

"These will filter in late and most likely will not get here in time to be counted," Jensson said. Ballots postmarked on Election Day or earlier must be received by noon Monday to be counted. The Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors will canvass the votes at 11 a.m. Tuesday, after which the as-yet unofficial results become final.

There also were some 776 provisional ballots cast at the polls, some from voters who had originally requested absentee ballots. -- WCFCourier.com | The Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier Online!

Posted by Ed at 8:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Dahlia Lithwick writes on Slate.com: Like bombs that never detonated, most of the cataclysmic legal battles we'd all been anticipating are scattered inert across the country this morning, with the last among them the fight over Ohio's provisional ballots. Those potential landmines included a lawsuit in Pennsylvania over absentee ballots, last-minute suits in Florida over late-to-arrive absentee ballots, and yesterday's skirmishes in Ohio over challengers at polling places. Similarly, Colorado's looming legal crisis vaporized with the failure of Amendment 36, the effort to reapportion the state's electoral votes. Those fights are now moot or irrelevant. In the end, the 2004 election was decided by the voters, not the courts, a result that's far better for all of us in the long run.

Ohio really could have been the new Florida. The final numbers showed George W. Bush leading Kerry with a margin of approximately 135,000 votes. Depending on whom you asked this morning, the number of provisional ballots is greater than that: Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said that as many as 150,000 of the state ballots were provisional, other elections officials have put that number over 200,000. Any way you sliced it, that's less than the "margin of litigation" and it opened up the possibility of a host of new election challenges. -- Lawyered Up - The legal nightmare that never materialized. By Dahlia Lithwick

Posted by Ed at 8:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

AP reports: A last-ditch effort by voting activists to extend polling hours in New Orleans amid allegations that voters improperly were denied access to electronic voting booths failed Tuesday evening after a judge rejected a request to keep the polls open two extra hours.

The activists had sought an emergency order that would have kept the polls open until 10 p.m. -- two hours past the standard closing time -- so voters could have time to return and cast a full ballot.

Civil District Court Judge Sidney Cates gave no reason for the denial.

Bill Quigley, a lawyer for the Louisiana Election Protection Committee, ... said that, in many instances, voters whose names appeared on the rolls but who were taking part in their first presidential election were told not to use the regular electronic voting booths. They were instructed to fill out provisional ballots, which did not include several state elections. Such ballots were only supposed to be used by those whose names could not be found on the rolls or the secretary of state's master list. -- Activists seek to extend Orleans voting hours

Posted by Ed at 8:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Maui News reports: In a showdown that began at high noon, it took shouting, police officers and an hour and a half before state House candidate Cort Gallup was allowed to cast a provisional ballot in Tuesday's general election.

In a surreal ending to a unique campaign, Gallup's eligibility to vote was challenged by Kihei Community Center precinct Chairwoman Cindy Clark, a Maui GOP leader. He was initially denied a ballot.

Gallup is a Native American who was born in Canada and who had been ruled ineligible to vote by County Clerk Roy Hiraga. But his name remained on the voter lists at the Kihei precinct in which he lives, and he has appealed Hiraga's decision.

He also is a Democrat who challenged state Rep. Chris Halford for the state House 11th District (South Maui) seat. -- Maui News

Posted by Ed at 8:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

AP reports: The GOP sued Ohio over the ballots even before polls closed Tuesday.

The lawsuit demanded better ground rules for evaluating the ballots, and a guarantee that they could watch, alongside Democrats, as state officials prepare the provisional ballots to be counted.

Loparo said no changes in the rules are necessary. "We feel that we have clear, statewide standards for counting provisional ballots," he said.

Mark Weaver, an attorney representing Ohio Republicans, said the GOP told a federal judge that it thinks it can work with Blackwell's office on how to handle the ballots and that no court order is necessary for now.

A message seeking comment was left with Democratic party spokesman Myron Marlin.

The liberal-leaning Election Protection Coalition said its Internet and telephone hot lines logged 126 provisional-ballot complaints in Ohio involving voters not allowed to cast provisional ballots after not receiving absentee ballots, said Maria Blanco, executive director for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, a coalition member. After a woman sued on behalf of voters who didn't receive absentee ballots on time, all were allowed to cast provisional ballots.

Whether the provisional ballots still to be counted affect the results matters less than whether the ballots were handled properly to begin with, Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, a coalition member.

"We're thinking of voters being disenfranchised," Greenbaum said. "It's something we're going to look at." -- MLive.com: NewsFlash - Kerry's concession removes urgency to count provisional ballots

Posted by Ed at 8:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Voters in the Pennsylvania suburbs - like their counterparts across the state - were turning out in huge numbers today, sometimes catching election workers off-balance.

Provisionals ballots were an issue in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the state.

Kerry's Pennsylvania campaign chief, Tony Podesta, said during the afternoon that "Allegheny, Washington and Montgomery Counties are out of provisional ballots."

He said the counties were going to print copies of provisional ballots to make up for the deficit but that the copies would not have the security envelopes required by the Help American Vote Act.

"It's possible that the HAVA requirements will not be met," he said, which could get the ballots thrown out. -- Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/02/2004 | Ballot problems go to court in Pa. suburbs

Posted by Ed at 10:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

No, I'm not going to predict the winners, but I will make some predictions about the legal issues for the election.

Well, that's three predictions. One based on old practices and two based on the new, improved voting technology we got since the last fiasco.

And one final one: more litigation. (What would I write about if it were otherwise?)

Posted by Ed at 10:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)