If there’s a question about a person’s eligibility when they come into the polling place, they can vote on a provisional ballot. That’s what the Help America Vote Act says. Many states use provisional ballots as a way to make sure that anyone who wants to vote gets to.
The idea is that a voter fills out a form (it updates their voter registration), gets a ballot, puts the marked ballot in an envelope, and then a couple days later, the local board of elections reviews the voter’s eligibility and determines whether the ballot gets counted.
Most of the provisional ballot application forms we’ve seen until recently are overwhelming and contract-looking. The insight that the Virginia Department of Elections (ELECT) had was that the form doesn’t stand alone. The form is a piece of of a suite of materials that need to work together: form, envelope, notice to the voter about what happened and what to do next, and a log for poll workers to document who got a provisional ballot and why.
They wanted to
All of the pieces work together because they incorporate the best practices of
When ELECT presented the new materials at annual training in June 2018, registrars and electoral board members were understandably impressed.
The State Board of Elections, in unanimous approval, adopted the new provisional ballot form and notices on June 25, 2018. They will be ready to use in the 2018 midterm elections.