CLEVELAND, Ohio – Americans have heard quite a bit about provisional ballots this week, and a certain amount of controversy has developed as to when and how such votes are counted. It was previously understood that provisional ballots, as stipulated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, were votes collected in the case of a question regarding the voter’s eligibility, and were counted seven to eight days after the election. However, it has just been uncovered that officials in sixteen states have been using the term “provisional ballots” to categorize every single vote cast by a minority.
The discovery was made at a polling station in Virginia, when a Democratic Party observer noticed an entire precinct’s worth of votes being taken by wheelbarrow to a “provisional room.” Ballots were declared to provisional if there was “any doubt as to the voter being white,” according to a Manassas, VA, election official. Despite the new definition, the same rules as always will apply to the provisional ballots. They are to be collected in large trash bags, cast into the nearest landfill, and dug up someday if there is “any doubt as to the outcome of the election.”
