In Missouri, provisional ballots hold the key to presidential results

[pstokely]

Source: STL Post-Dispatch

In Missouri, provisional ballots hold the key to presidential results
By Jo Mannies
POST-DISPATCH POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
11/06/2008

Republican John McCain's 5,868-vote edge in Missouri over Democrat Barack Obama and the state's 104-year record as the nation's best presidential bellwether both hinge on 7,085 votes in the state that have yet to be counted.

All are "provisional ballots" cast by people whose status as registered voters could not be verified when they showed up at the polls Tuesday.

St. Louis County election officials estimate that about 3,000 of those ballots were cast in county polling places. Another 750 came from the city of St. Louis. About 800-plus were cast in the Kansas City area, and the rest are sprinkled from around the state.

All sides agree that the geography implies that most of the provisional ballots included votes for Obama.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/polit...

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Missouri could have been another Florida or Ohio

[stlsaxman]

1. you mean those vote haven't been counted?

not expecting it to change anything but sure would be nice to know the votes were ALL counted.

[Igel]

7. Provisional ballots are counted.

Typically their numbers aren't large and wouldn't make a difference. But they're still counted.

However, they're paper ballots and so take longer to count.

They're also ballots that need special treatment. You have to make sure that they're completed correctly, and all the necessary information's provided. Then you have to compare it with the information on file, to see if the people who claim to have voted are registered voters. Finally, you have to do things like compare signatures, to see if the signatures match up, so the person is who s/he said s/he is. In some cases, the problem is that the voter didn't have the proper ID with him/her, and time has to be given for the voter to show up and provide the proper ID. All this also means that to ensure these voters' right to vote takes longer.

Of course, in many cases, the voter will not engage in follow-up, so his/her ballot will be declared invalid. Some signatures will not match up, and more people will be found to have not been properly registered (even if they thought they were), or to be registered in a different jurisdiction (and wrong about what precinct they should have voted in). Some ballots will be incomplete, or improperly completed--whether because of voter error or pollworker error.

So not all the votes have been counted. Many await counting. In fact, I'd venture that in some states, very few votes have been officially counted.

Remember: We're looking at *unofficial* counts, unofficial results. It takes anywhere from a week to a month to certify the election results--and only when they're accepted by the state's SOS are they official.

Take New York, for example. It's Thursday. Right now the BOE is probably checking seals and cracking open the backs of the lever machines and doing the official count. They may have done it yesterday; they might do it tomorrow or next week. The count we've seen is unofficial. Last time they found that some polling places double-counted or overlooked counting a bunch of votes in one precinct in NYC; it only mattered among those who didn't know that the "mistake" was in the unofficial count, the count that's written on toilet paper and flushed when the official count is made. Usually the two counts are the same. Often they differ in small ways. Sometimes they differ in large ways. It takes an effort to reconcile the two counts (and most BOEs try to do precisely that).

[stlsaxman]

11. thanks, igil, for your insightful and concise reply.

from what i heard there are some 7,000 uncounted provisionals and Obama is about 5,800 behind.

so much for "bellwether" Missouri. damned glad the race was decided well before and without us.

[WhiteTara]

9. the SOS has 28 days to finish

counting the votes and certifying the election.

[VeraAgnes]

2. They may just not want the state to "look" blue.

GOP Ego's are a hard egg to crack.

[IndyOp]

3. Thank you for posting this! (n/t)

[Bandit]

4. Well we certainly couldn't have their 104 year lod record fall now could we

I am sure that somehow they will manage to "find" just enough votes for Obama to secure their record of a bellweather state.

[last_texas_dem]

8. Oh well, they technically didn't vote with the true winner in '00 anyway...

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. So, Missouri may go blue? Or is the GOP planning to bury this?

[progressoid]

6. RE: So, Missouri may go blue? Probably not

In 2004, 8,183 provisional ballots were cast; 3,292 ended up being counted as legitimate.

In 2006, 7,401 provisional ballots were cast; 3,282 were okayed.

Using that same approval rate of roughly 40 percent, Craighead expects that fewer than 3,000 of Tuesday's provisional ballots will be added to the final tallies. Even if every vote went to Obama, McCain would still eke out a win, he said.


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/polit...

[Snazzy]

10. ah was wondering why google had this undecided

next para says:

Election officials have two weeks to check out the ballots and decide which ones should count.