Reply #17: Voting rights groups attack provisional ballot process [View All]

Posted on Sun, Dec. 26, 2004

Voting rights groups attack provisional ballot process

By James Dao, Ford Fessenden and Tom Zeller Jr.

NEW YORK TIMES


COLUMBUS, Ohio - William Shambora, 53, is the kind of diligent voter who once assumed that his ballot always counted. He got a rude awakening this year.

Shambora, an economics professor at Ohio University, moved during the summer but failed to notify the Athens County Board of Elections until the day before the election. An official told him to use a provisional ballot.

But under Ohio law, provisional ballots are valid only when cast from a voter's correct precinct. Shambora was given a ballot for the wrong precinct. Two weeks later, the board discarded his vote, adding him to a list of more than 300 provisional ballots that were rejected in that heavily Democratic county.

"It seems like such a confused system," said Shambora, a John Kerry supporter who blames himself for the mistake. "Maybe if enough people's votes had counted, the election might have turned out differently."


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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/10501551.htm