RE: provisional ballot in wrong polling place? WELL DUH!

["Mcgrath, Bob___PAIC_Mkt" <bob.mcgrath@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Has it occurred to anyone that the history behind granting liberal access to
provisional ballots stemmed from the widespread disenfranchisement
experienced by so many voters in 2000 when counties arbitrarily changed
voting precinct locations and engaged in wholesale poll scrubbing that
removed voters from the list of registered voters, which voters had no
reason to suspect would happen until they were confronted with these actions
as they went to vote?  

Part of HAVA's provisions for provisional ballots was to address these very
issues of people losing their votes due to these types of shenanigans, and
allowing voters every chance to at least cast a vote until the veracity of
their claim as a rightful voter could be determined in the 12 days
post-election that the law provides.  It is not unreasonable for people to
show up at the wrong precinct since voting locations do change, since people
do move and miss deadlines to change their location to vote, and since many
voter registrations or changes to registrations may languish unattended in
these halcyon days of huge voter registration drives.  It would not surprise
me that thousands of newly-registered voters will show up to vote and the
poll books will not reflect that they are registered, and they may indeed
become disenfranchised if they are not offered a provisional ballot until
the system can catch up with the many challenges being placed upon it.  The
fact that the CO Div. of Motor Vehicles' computers went down recently (where
many people register to vote), and the county clerks are contemplating
hiring night shifts to help process the thousands of new voter
registrations, compounds the stresses being placed upon all systems to try
to handle the crush of people who wish to vote in this election.  

History has been so full of instances where barriers are placed in front of
people trying to cast their vote - Poll taxes, grandfather clauses (you can
only vote if your grandfather voted), ex-felon rules, new ID regulations --
that the HAVA rules on provisional ballots were intended as a partial remedy
to increase confidence that people would be given a chance to cast a vote,
and to remove as many barriers as possible.
Bob McGrath, Director
Coloradoans for Voting Integrity
355 Teller Ste 200
Lakewood, CO 80226
Tel. 303.231.1031
http://www.cfvi.org



-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Klammer [mailto:pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 12:04 AM
To: 'Joe Pezzillo'; reindeer@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx; 'Mcgrath,
Bob___PAIC_Mkt'
Subject: RE: provisional ballot in wrong polling place? WELL DUH!


I don't see how provisional ballot rules should be interpreted to grant any
voter some right to vote in someone else's precinct.  This is a recipe for
laziness, sloppiness, error, and deteriorated election quality.

If the voter goes to his proper polling location for the precinct he belongs
to, and the Election Division books have the voter's precinct wrong, then
the full provisional ballot should be voted and counted.  I haven't heard or
read anyone suggest this shouldn't or won't be the case (other than the
aforesaid rumormongering that implied it).

You may be mistakenly thinking of absentee balloting, in which anyone can
vote anywhere, any time.  I understand the fondness for such lush
convenience but I have no sympathy for it.  What some see as the comparable
fault of the provisional ballot, I see as a virtue.

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE(SA,P1583), ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
   "Either Be Good, or Else Be Careful, but Do Have Fun! "
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Pezzillo [mailto:jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 8:23 PM
> To: pklammer@xxxxxxx
> Cc: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx; 
> 'Mcgrath, Bob___PAIC_Mkt'
> Subject: Re: provisional ballot in wrong polling place? WELL DUH!
> 
> 
> 
> I thought the whole point of Provisional Ballots was specifically to 
> allow people to vote IF they show up at the wrong location or don't 
> have proper ID. The DRE vendors who hype the ability of their 
> machines 
> to bring up any ballot style for any provisional voters 
> certainly seem 
> to think that's an advantage of their systems in complying with the 
> rules.
> 
> I can understand why voting rights activists would be concerned about 
> any rule that violates a core premise of the purpose of the 
> provisional 
> ballot.
> 
> Also, since the Federal offices (senate and house) should be 
> covered by 
> federal election rules, I don't understand how the SoS can 
> (yet again) 
> create her own set of rules that violate the law.
> 
> Joe
> 
>