Posted on 11/17/2004 10:51:40 AM PST by Tennessean4Bush
Seem Legitimate
By MARK WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio were legitimate, say election officials who are poring over thousands of presidential election ballots.
The ballots that are being rejected are invalid because people simply were not registered, did not give information such as addresses or signatures, or voted in precincts where they do not live.
"Some people thought because they had changed their mailing address at the post office, or had changed their utilities, that they had done everything necessary to be eligible to vote," said Nancy Moore, deputy director of the Belmont County Board of Elections. "They still have to change their address at the board of elections. We're not mind readers."
President Bush (news - web sites) beat Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) in Ohio by 136,000 votes in unofficial tallies, and Kerry has conceded not enough outstanding votes exist to sway the election his way in the key battleground state.
Of the 11 counties that have completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to an Associated Press survey Monday. Counties that have completed partial tallies also said most of the provisional ballots were being counted.
Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.
In many counties, the smallest portion of rejected ballots were due to votes being cast in the wrong precinct. Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live.
Election officials said heightened public attention to the court case and the efforts of poll workers helped voters arrive at the right precincts.
Ohio voters cast 155,337 provisional ballots, which are used when voters names are not on the rolls for some reason or their eligibility is otherwise in doubt. Counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.
Officials are determining voters' eligibility before counting each vote, so the result is not yet known.
In Colorado, the approval rate of provisional ballots was 76 percent, according to a survey of counties by the Denver Post. Nearly 24 percent of the state's estimated 51,000 provisional ballots had been rejected, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
Election officials had not yet compiled the reason for the rejections, the newspaper said. The rejection rate was 12 percent in Colorado in 2002, a non-presidential election year.
President Bush won in Colorado by more than 5 percentage points.
Cuyohogah County (Kerry's best county - 66% acceptance rate
Not looking good for Kerry!
You lost, sKerry. Get over it and
go out w/ someone else.
MV
...watch how fast this story dies when it appears Bush won outright.
Doogle
Mostly democRATic, no doubt.
If Kerry needs 80% of those cast, and 80% are legit, he needs 100% of the legit ballots in order to win.
The ballots that are being rejected are invalid because people simply were not registered, did not give information such as addresses or signatures, or voted in precincts where they do not live. "
It's too bad the AP couldn't fit this oxymoron into one sentence.
The prevailing wisdom says that they generally break about as the general election....look for very little change after the provisionals are tallied
My family lives in OH and it seems like the provisionals are going 2/3 to W.
He needed 80% before the overseas and military absentee ballots were counted. I suspect Bush got more than 50% of those votes, so Kerry needs even more of the provisional ballots to go his way, and it doesn't look like there are enough.
I'll be glad when the final vote tallies are in and the Dems complaining that Kerry won Ohio will have to come up with new lies.
I'd read that John Fund reported last week that half of Ohio's provisional ballots had been thrown out at illegal. Either he, or this report, are wrong.
Good luck Kerry.
Validation rates are varying by county. In Lucas County (A Dem stronghold, it has Toledo), less than 50% of the provisionals were valid per the Toledo Blade newspaper (about 3000 valid out of a little over 6000 provisionals). Most of the numbers I've heard out of Cuyahoga county (Cleveland) show them maintaining about a 67% validity rate, they're not done validating though.
I think John Fund was just guessing.
Chance of Kerry overtaking Bush - 0
There were 135,149 provisional ballots cast in that state.
The traitor would have to get all 135,149 then some to take the state.
It's a total waste of time.
Maybe Fund was surmising (correctly) that a up to half the prov. ballots in Kerry Country are junk.
Gee...the urban, Democratic counties have the highest percentage of unacceptable ballots.
I wonder how many of the people casting these ballots even really exist, if you get my drift.
It's a waste of time for those who think it will or may change the result of the election.
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