What Is A Provisional Ballot For Voting

You would cast a provisional ballot for a few reasons such as forgetting your id or if you need to register but don t have proof of residency.

What is a provisional ballot for voting. What is a provisional ballot. Making your vote count. A provisional voting requirements if an individual declares that such individual is a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the individual desires to vote and that the individual is eligible to vote in an election for federal office but the name of the individual does not appear on the official list of eligible voters for the polling place or an election official asserts that the. If the election official finds that you re eligible to vote your provisional ballot should be counted.

In elections in the united states a provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there are questions about a given voter s eligibility that must be resolved before the vote can count. If the voter decides that a provisional ballot is the best option they cannot get to their correct polling location before polls close or there is another issue where a provisional ballot is the only option. A provisional ballot goes in an envelope and not in the actual machine on election day. A local supervisor of elections explains why some people will have to a fill out different kind of ballot when they get to the polls.

The provisional vote information sheets are collected separately from the provisional ballots which go into the sealed box. The sealed box of ballots goes to the sheriff s office after the. The point of provisional ballots is to be able to give voters who think that a mistake was made about their eligibility the opportunity to cast a ballot that will count while at the same time giving elections administrators a chance to look at their records and make an assessment on whether there was eligibility said myrna pérez director of the new york based brennan center s. Regardless of the issue the voter should be offered a provisional ballot to vote.

Election officials are required to have a system in place that lets provisional voters find out whether or not their ballots were counted and if not why not. Instead of turning away a voter you can try to solve the issue if possible prior to giving the voter a provisional ballot. The federal help america vote act of 2002 guarantees that in most states the voter can cast a provisional ballot if the voter states that they are entitled to vote.