Did anyone else request a provisional (paper) ballot?

[RucdelaSpook]

I requested a paper ballot, but the electioneers told me that they were required to give me this disclaimer: something along the lines of, "I am aware that my provisional vote may or may not be counted in this election."

What the hell?! If someone went through the trouble of filling out a ballot, why aren't we counting his/her vote?!

The ladies there kept trying to to pressure me into using the Diebold machine, but I refused, so they ended up giving me a scantron ballot... speaking of which, are these ballots put into a machine and counted THAT way, or are they hand-counted, or what? She gave me a PEN. From what I've learned from standardized testing, the machines are supposed to detect a No. 2 pencil--not ink... Luckily, I had a no. 2 pencil in my pocket. So i shaded in my selections twice, once in ink, once in pencil...

I hope my vote gets counted...:eek:

[ronpaulblogsdotcom]

Sounds like the paper ballots were provisional ballots. Usually those ballots are verified by hand before being counted. Sometimes takes a while.

Whatever we didnt lose the COngressional seat and we got third in the prez race.

[weslinder]

(I worked a poll yesterday, and was trained on Saturday.)

What happened to you was wrong. You can request a paper ballot for any kind of ballot, not just provisional. Provisional ballots were only for people who weren't on the voter registrar's list and did not have their voter registration card. Our county uses "iVotronic" machines, so there's no way to do provisional ballots electronically, so if a voter's registration could not be verified, we gave them a paper provisional ballot.

If your ballot was stamped "Provisional", you would have had to put it in an envelope that had a form on the outside. The information that you put on that form would be reviewed before your vote was counted.

The paper ballots are read by an optical scan machine. Pen is fine. Pencil is required for a electronic scan machine.

[RucdelaSpook]

(I worked a poll yesterday, and was trained on Saturday.)

What happened to you was wrong. You can request a paper ballot for any kind of ballot, not just provisional.

If your ballot was stamped "Provisional", you would have had to put it in an envelope that had a form on the outside. The information that you put on that form would be reviewed before your vote was counted.



Ughh!! I hope that's not the case..
It was a provisional ballot, but when they filled out the form on the envelope, I didn't fall into any of their categories, so they "wrote" in a 9th option: "Does not want to vote with the electronic machine".

The people there were RIDICULOUSLY incompetent... and I guess so was I? My table was being run by someone from the Democratic party because the person from the Republican party never showed up! I guess it's expected... El Paso politics is completely inefficient.

I guess I'll have to look into what my county's policy is on electronic voting...:mad: