Seawytch
Information isnt Advocacy
In an election in which the number of uncleared ballots can not possibly alter the outcome, it seems unreasonable for the state to spend a great deal of time and money on this issue.I want BOTH sides to listen very carefully to a FACT.. I CHECKED the Cal secstate website for DAYS following the election to see the status of their counting. 2 days AFTER the election, there were 1.5 MILLION provisional ballots to be cleared !!!! Provisional ballots are issued to folks who are UNKNOWN to the registration officials at a particular polling site.
When I checked when the count was about to close -- there were STILL 900,000 provisional ballots left "uncleared". LIKELY the BULK of those will NEVER be investigated or cleared. Now when a state leaves that many PROVISIONALS on the floor or even ACCUMULATES that number of unknown voters, there is something sketchy and hinky going on and needs to be investigated. NOT -------- a partisan issue.
If just 10% are INELIGIBLE voters -- who violated Fed election law by attempting to vote in multiple places or without the proper qualifications -- that's a massive issue.
And rather than just closing your eyes and counting on those 900,000 attempts to vote to GO AWAY...
Wouldn't you LIKE somebody to figure out why ANY STATE has 1.5MILLION unknown voters? The system is broke. In the haste to make it painless and easy to vote -- we've TOTALLY SKIPPED the requirement for folks to properly register. It's at TIME OF REGISTRATION, that all this should be settled. NOT on election day. You should be able to show up AT YOUR poll and waltz in with a bathing suit and sign your name. IF you are properly registered. NO ID required. Because in a competent system that is NOT govt run -- the nice old folks at the table would have a picture come up to identify you and all the REGISTRATION DATA IN FRONT OF THEM.
SCREW Folks who are too lazy to go sign up to vote in a timely manner..
The most common reason for issuing provisional ballots is purged voter rolls. In the 2012 election, 44% of provisional ballots were determined to be the result of purging.
Since there is current no sure way to tell if a voter has died, left the country, or taken up resident in another state, county, or city, rolls are periodically purged of voters who have not voted in a number of year. Then grandpa who hasn't voted in 20 years show up at the polls to vote and he's not on the rolls. So he casts a provisional ballot which is not counted till it is cleared. The process can be time consuming and the voter has the right to appeal.
Remember what I said about govt doing a crappy job of their most important duty?? Well, there it is in your list of excuses for this mountain of provisional ballots. If Grandpa has not VOTED in 20 years, why doesn't the registrar send out inquiries to voters every year -- after they haven't SHOWED UP for 8 years or so? No excuse for the sloppiness, inaccuracy, and stone age techniques used in guaranteeing fair elections and ballot access....
Why don't they share "change of address" notices with the post office and send inquiries? This is something AMAZON can handle. They can follow you around the world and know everything you've bought for crying out load.
We get those too. I process DMV moves and National Change of Address (NCOA) files every month.