More than 20 days after Election Day, about 1,500 provisional ballots in Athens County will count toward deciding November’s candidates and issues.
A total of 1,656 provisional ballots were cast in Athens County this year, and employees of the Athens County Board of Elections cleared 1,441 of them as valid. The four members of the board needed to determine if the remaining 215 ballots should be counted.
During the two-hour meeting, the board also rejected 53 of 54 absentee ballots it had to verify. Board of Elections director Debbie Quivey said eight absentee ballots were not postmarked before Election Day, and none of the ballots were affected by the Superstorm Sandy that hit the East Coast in late October and early November.
The board members also rejected 187 provisional ballots for a variety of reasons, ranging from voters not having a valid signature or not including a correct address on their ballots to their not being registered to vote in Ohio.
Three voters cast both provisional and absentee ballots, and the board members rejected their provisional votes because their absentee ballots had already been counted. Board members also decided to have these cases sent to Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn for further review. One voter cast an absentee ballot in Athens County in October before voting provisionally on Election Day.
The most common problem was voters who weren’t registered in Ohio — 136 ballots were rejected for this reason.
“People wonder why so many provisional ballots don’t count, and they try to blame it on the Boards of Elections,” Quivey said. “But these people weren’t even registered to vote.”
The number of provisional ballots cast on Election Day was about normal for a presidential election year, said Penny Brooks, deputy director of the Athens County Board of Elections.
“Given it was a presidential (election year), it really went well,” she said. “(The number of provisional ballots) always goes up during an election year.”
The Board of Elections will gather and release an official count for the November election on Tuesday.
jj360410@ohiou.edu
