Nearly 1000 voters forced to vote provisional in a single Franklin county precinct

http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4791

by Gerry Bello and Nicole Ware

November 6, 2012

A Democratic county poll worker has estimated that over the course of Election Day, one thousand registered voters will be forced to vote provisionally in a single predominantly African American precinct in Franklin County. Discrepancies between voter ID and information in the official database, possibly caused by the June changes to BMV registration software, may have disenfranchised up to three-fourths of the 35th ward's voters.

This is a staggering number of provisional ballots. So far at other polling sites, there are provisional ballots numbers of 21 or less.

“There were two and half times as many people on the provisional ballot line as on the lines to for regular voting,” said a Free Press Election Protection observer about the Driving Park polling place in south central Columbus.

Voting by provisional ballot carries a much higher chance a person's vote will not be counted. Provisional ballots are not counted until November 17th. The Secretary of State's office was recently embroiled in a court dispute over the acceptance criteria of provisional ballots. The possibility exists that the same criteria that cause a voter to be forced to vote provisionally could also cause that same provisional ballot to be discarded.