by K Shawn Edgar

Created on: November 12, 2008

An Interloper's Journey to Election Day

On Friday, October 31 I made first contact. It's Washington County. I'm in Hillsboro, Oregon and I clicked send after typing my request to the state elections division with the subject line Provisional Ballots.

Hello

I am requesting information on the use of provisional ballots in Oregon. Especially: Why are they used, and when should a voter use one? How does the elections division guarantee that provisional ballots will be counted? How are they reviewed?

Thank you,

K. Shawn Edgar

The next day at 9:17 a.m. I received a response from Elections SOS, and it went a little something like this only I've summarized it to increase efficiency and enhance readability:

Dear Shawn,

A provisional ballot is one that is issued when the eligibility of the voter has not yet been determined, or when the county elections official issues a ballot to a voter who resides in another Oregon county.

For example: if someone goes into the county elections office and says they are a registered voter but the county cannot find that they have registered, they can give the person a ballot but will not count the ballot unless they find that the person was registered by the deadline.

Let me know if you need further information. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Brenda Bayes / Elections Division

This was good, and fairly clear but nothing I couldn't have found in their paper literature and their online help pages. I needed to delve like Rosencrantz kept waiting for Guildenstern to do in that play about them by Tom Stoppard.

Brenda

The information definitely helps, however, after researching the 2000 and 2004 general elections and the lead-up to this one, questions remain. Are counties in Oregon using the so-called exact match criteria set up by the poorly named Help America Vote Act (HAVA)?

If so, how is the eligibility of a voter determined? If a person comes to her county elections office, and says she is registered but the county official cannot find her information, or a detail of her name is different (e.g., a hyphenated name missing the hyphen) the person will be given a provisional ballot. Once the voter votes the ballot, who decides either to count it or not count it? What resources will be used to verify the name, address, etc.?

Also, how often are voters removed from the rolls for inappropriate or mistaken reasons? If that person comes in to ask about her ballot, how can she prove registration? Can she demand a regular (non-provisional) ballot?

Robert Kennedy Jr. and investigative

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