DO NOT accept a provisional ballot on election day – DEMAND a real ballot
Thu, Oct 23, 2008
An excellent resource from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Steal Back Your Vote. The site is getting slammed, so I consulted the Google, and here’s the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INSTRUCTION.
STEP 4: DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT if your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their “provisional ballot” would be counted, BUT IT WON’T. Don’t listen to the little old lady!! DEMAND that poll judges make the judgement ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID.
If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE . And help those around you when you’re at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!
As a challenger in 2004, my role was to watch for anyone challenging a voter, step in, and challenge right back. By the end of the day, I was parked at one polling place with super long lines, trying to convince voters in line to NOT ACCEPT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT.
Here’s how I put it some time ago.
The REAL goal with all these machinations and tamperings with electoral processes (which put together are likely illegal, and will, or should, eventually put someone in jail) is to get as many new voters as possible to vote provisional.
Voting provisional accomplishes two things for GOP strategy. It puts the ballot aside for review, before it is counted, and keeps the ballot from going into the main box, where it is immediately counted, without review. So the first canvass of precincts, i.e. the count on election night, will not reflect provisional numbers. That means that unless Ohio is a clear decision one way or another on election night, doubt will be sown about the result, because so many provisionals will have been cast, and will have yet to be counted.
Second, voting provisional puts a ballot in another pile for review. If the election in Ohio goes into a recount, every one of these provisional ballots will be challenged, and litigated, right down to the chad. The pile of provisionals in Ohio is where Florida 2000 lurks. The bigger that pile, the more chance there is for chaos in the system which will benefit John McCain.
You defeat this by not leaving the sign-in table without voting a regular ballot. PERIOD. And you TELL EVERY VOTER around you on election day at the polling place to do the same.
Polling officials will cave. You can roll them. Here’s why.
If a polling official has a flimsy reason to put your ballot in the provisional pile (and they’re all flimsy) instead of THE BOX WHERE IT WILL BE COUNTED, a feisty voter can overcome that flimsy reason simply by staying put, refusing a provisional ballot, and demanding a regular ballot. Polling officials fear nothing more than a long line, a slow process, and a bunch of feisty voters that will put their polling place on the TV news. Faced with the choice between making you vote provisional, and making themselves famous, they will give the voter a REAL ballot EVERY TIME.
At one point on election night in 2004, I was literally yelling at the top of my lungs to the long line of voters, “DO NOT ACCEPT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT, MAKE THEM GIVE YOU A REGULAR BALLOT”. Before long, the poll workers just gave up this provisional nonsense, because trying to make so many people vote provisional, who refused, was driving them insane in the membrane. The process sped up, and calm returned.
So spread the word.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Reposted here.
I must warn you, and anyone reading, that doing what you’re demanding will only result in fewer people getting to vote as one person holds up the line.
1. Partisan poll observers are allowed so long as they don’t interfere. The Ohio SOS has made this very clear in the training. Once a poll observer interferes with, or even -delays- the voting process, that observer is kicked out (after one warning).
2. Virtually any form of current ID + address is accepted for a regular ballot. Even a utility bill or a fishing license is accepted. The singular exception is passports. Don’t ask me why.
3. For every one GOP judge, there’s also a Democratic and Independent judge. If someone believes they are the victim of a partisan suppression, all they need to do is speak with another judge.
If the majority of judges deem that a person requires a provisional ballot, no amount of protest will give them the regular ballot. Refusing to take the provisional ballot, and remaining in the polling place, will result in one of two scenarios. 1) The person will be forcibly removed, a la an interfering/delaying poll observer. 2) The person will successfully protest, causing long delays which lead to fewer total votes as others waiting in line leave.
This ain’t 2004. Try learning the new system before giving out bad advice.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Matthew,
Whya re so bent on making people accept provisional ballots unless you want to suppress the vote. Lets be frank, this isnt the 20’s where people votes 7 times. That doesnt occur anymore. When someone votes, their vote should be counter. Plain and simple.