Hi Faith, one clarification I have is that provisional ballots are not given to voters who bring in their mail-in ballot and envelope. The voters who do that surrender their mail-in ballot so they can sign the registration book and vote in person using a normal ballot and the scanner. Their votes are counted that night at the county, since they are in the same cohort as all the others who voted in person. Provisional ballots are actually rare (we didn’t have any at UG6 yesterday) and are used in special circumstances where the voter is not listed in the book or are otherwise not legally allowed to sign the book and therefore cannot vote using a standard ballot. UG5 did have one provisional ballot because the person was given a mail-in ballot but the voter said they lost it. In that case the voter was not able to surrender a mail-in ballot and therefore was not legally able to sign the book and vote using the standard ballot and scanner. So in order to vote they filled out a provisional ballot. The county will determine if the voter actually DID mail in their ballot, in which case the provisional ballot will not be counted, or the voter really did lose the ballot and then the provisional ballot will be counted. This is manual process and that’s why it takes longer to count.
Hi Faith, one clarification I have is that provisional ballots are not given to voters who bring in their mail-in ballot and envelope. The voters who do that surrender their mail-in ballot so they can sign the registration book and vote in person using a normal ballot and the scanner. Their votes are counted that night at the county, since they are in the same cohort as all the others who voted in person. Provisional ballots are actually rare (we didn’t have any at UG6 yesterday) and are used in special circumstances where the voter is not listed in the book or are otherwise not legally allowed to sign the book and therefore cannot vote using a standard ballot. UG5 did have one provisional ballot because the person was given a mail-in ballot but the voter said they lost it. In that case the voter was not able to surrender a mail-in ballot and therefore was not legally able to sign the book and vote using the standard ballot and scanner. So in order to vote they filled out a provisional ballot. The county will determine if the voter actually DID mail in their ballot, in which case the provisional ballot will not be counted, or the voter really did lose the ballot and then the provisional ballot will be counted. This is manual process and that’s why it takes longer to count.