If Tuesday's Vote Is Close, Expect A Slow Count

If the vote count is close on Tuesday night, there's a good chance Americans will become as familiar with a special kind of voting - known as a provisional ballot - as they were with hanging chads in Florida in the aftermath of Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election.

That is because in several battle ground states the number of provisional and uncounted mail-in ballots - which have to be checked one by one after Election Day to validate the voter's registration information before counting - plus the number of uncounted mail-in ballots are likely to exceed the margins of victory.

In other words, if it is a close vote, you can expect Republican and Democratic Party lawyers to start fighting over the state-by-state and county-by-county rules concerning provisional ballot eligibility. Provisional ballots were created by Congress after the 2000 election, but each state was given the leeway to implement its own rules for accepting or rejection these ballots.

In states like Colorado and Florida where strict matching rules have been used to purge voters from electronic voter registration rolls, and in states like Indiana and Ohio where new stricter voter identification laws have been implemented, more eligible voters than ever before will cast provisional ballots that are not counted on Election Night.

Read the entire article here: If Tuesday's Vote is Close, Get Ready for a Slow Count

For a list of sources for the Alternet article: http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ --

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed
product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://electionarchive.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

How to Audit Election Outcome Accuracy http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/VoteCountAuditBillRequest.pdf

© Scoop Media