Provisional Ballots

INADEQUATE poll-worker training and a glitch in the printing of voter rolls are the main culprits for the uptick in provisional ballots cast at Philadelphia polls in the 2012 election, according to a report from City Controller Alan Butkovitz. "The election system has to do better," Butkovitz said. "To those people, and to people who are voting for the first time and the concept that every vote counts, it was a failure. And commissioners have to do better and the Department of State has to do better.

For the first time in a presidential election, provisional ballots were used in most states, including Pennsylvania, where there were scattered reports of shortages and confusion over the new method of voting. Under a 2002 federal law, prospective voters can use provisional ballots if there are questions about their eligibility to vote. The large turnout and high number of first-time voters left some Pennsylvania officials from Allegheny County to eastern Delaware County without enough ballots.

Philadelphia's city commissioners moved a step closer Wednesday to understanding why voters had to cast more than twice as many provisional ballots in the 2012 presidential election as in 2008, but the initial review raised as many questions as it answered. Many of the problems occurred because of mistakes by poll workers and voters themselves, according to a preliminary report by Gregory Irving, the commissioners' acting voter registration administrator. In 2012, 27,355 voters cast provisional ballots, up from 12,733 in 2008.

Not long ago in Pennsylvania - as recently as the 2000 presidential election - there would have been few remedies for nearly 54,000 voters turned away because their names weren't on the rolls. In Philadelphia, these voters could have spent the next several hours making an appearance before a local elections-court judge who might, or might not, affirm their right to vote. In the suburbs, they would have had to make the possibly long trek to the county seat to lodge an appeal.

THE MAJORITY of city voters forced to use provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 presidential election should have been able to vote regularly, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the City Commissioners. Of the 27,355 provisional ballots cast, 14,407 were from voters listed properly in poll books or supplemental sheets, and 5,263 were from people who properly registered but weren't included in polling material. One of the primary reasons for the errors, according to the report, was that the status of voters who were not 18 when they registered was not updated before polling material was printed.

BECAUSE MORE THAN 27,000 voters were required to cast provisional ballots on Election Day, City Controller Alan Butkovitz announced Tuesday that he wants to conduct an audit of this year's election process. The number of voters who cast provisional ballots in this month's presidential election was more than double the amount in 2008, and Butkovitz said he wants to get to the bottom of it after election results are certified. "It looks like there were an awful lot of complaints by people who said they've been in the poll books for years," Butkovitz said.

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge has refused to order the Board of Elections to deliver extra provisional ballots to all polling places in the city, saying reports of ballot shortages appeared to be exaggerated. Pamela Pryor Dembe, president judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, rejected a petition from Organizing for America, a ground-level arm of the Democratic National Committee. National Democrats have been leaning heavily on the City Commissioners, who oversee the Board of Elections, to send more provisional ballots based on reports that many people were not appearing in the poll books, and that polling places were running out of provisional ballots that would be their only alternative for voting.

A late-night letter from the state attorney general on Election Night ordered the provisional ballots in all counties to be impounded, and that has stalled final vote counts for state, county and municipal races. Around midnight on Tuesday, when the gubernatorial race was still neck-and-neck, Attorney General Peter Verniero ordered counties to place the provisional ballots under lock and key and posted state troopers on 24-hour guard. Yesterday, the troopers remained in place as candidates and party officials across the state awaited the official results of some of the closest races.

Two Camden County races that narrowly favored Republican candidates as of the Election Day count flipped after officials counted provisional ballots and certified the results, the county said Wednesday. Camden and 13 other New Jersey counties were granted extensions last week to certify their results. Election officials had a significant delay in counting because of Hurricane Sandy, which prompted the state to let residents vote in any county. In the Stratford Borough Council race, Democrat Frank Gagliardi trailed Republican Albert Adolf by one vote Nov. 6. But when the county certified the results Tuesday, Gagliardi, the incumbent, had won by 15 votes, according to the Camden County Clerk's Office.

New Jersey's provisional ballots, which were supposed to make it easier for people who had moved within their county to vote, ended up costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars for printing, and the counties untold thousands for workers' overtime and retraining. And the 15,000 votes that the provisional ballots brought on Nov. 5 probably won't warrant their return next year, state election officials say. The new ballots came to New Jersey this year because of a provision in the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the "motor-voter law. " It required states to give voting rights to those who had moved within their jurisdiction, or county, but who had not changed their address with the local board of elections.

INADEQUATE poll-worker training and a glitch in the printing of voter rolls are the main culprits for the uptick in provisional ballots cast at Philadelphia polls in the 2012 election, according to a report from City Controller Alan Butkovitz. "The election system has to do better," Butkovitz said. "To those people, and to people who are voting for the first time and the concept that every vote counts, it was a failure. And commissioners have to do better and the Department of State has to do better.

BY THE AFTERNOON of Election Day 2012, it was clear something was wrong: Rumors were spreading that an alarming number of voters were being forced to cast provisional ballots because their names weren't listed at their polling places. Mayor Nutter got on the phone with City Commissioner Stephanie Singer, then the city's top election official. How that conversation began depends on whom you believe, but there's no dispute about how it ended: with loud voices and an unexpected click.

HEY, PHILLY VOTERS. The Nutter administration wants to hear about your Election Day experience. After more than 27,000 voters were forced to use provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 presidential election, more than double the amount in 2008, Nutter established a "fact-finding team" last month to investigate what happened that day. City Controller Alan Butkovitz has also launched an investigation. Part of the Nutter administration's investigation includes hearing from voters. Public meetings are scheduled from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Feb. 6 in City Hall room 202 and Feb. 28 at Bright Hope Baptist Church, 1601 N. 12th St. Voters can also share their stories or make recommendations by visiting phila.gov/election2012 or by calling or texting 267-209-FACT.

Mayor Nutter's study of why an inordinate number of people were forced to vote with unreliable paper ballots in November should serve as a platform for reform in the city's electoral system. Voters cast 27,355 provisional, or paper, ballots, which are not counted until after Election Day, when the voter's identity can be verified. That was more than twice the 12,733 provisional ballots cast in 2008. Most of the ballots were eventually ruled valid, but many were thrown out. The rejects included ballots cast by people not registered or others who had been removed from the voter lists for currently unknown reasons.

Good news for Mitt Romney! Contrary to early vote counts, based solely on computerized returns from Philadelphia's voting machines, he did not get blanked in 59 of the city's 1,687 voting divisions. A groundswell of support among people voting by absentee and provisional ballots reduced the number of divisions where Romney received zero votes to 50. In addition, the certified results show 99 divisions where Romney was supported by exactly one voter. - Bob Warner   At Great Wall, Nutter saw a Rocky fist pump First day in China, Mayor Nutter and three others - Nancy Gilboy, president of the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia, and Nutter aides Suzanne Biemiller and Duane Bumb - do the tourist thing and go to the Great Wall.

Mayor Nutter appointed a fact-finding group headed by Managing Director Richard Negrin on Friday to review reports of problems during the presidential election. "On Election Day, there were reports questioning the integrity of the voter registration lists, the supply of provisional ballots, and the preparedness of some poll workers to address new state voter laws," Nutter said. He said City Commissioners Anthony Clark, Al Schmidt, and Stephanie Singer, who run city elections, had agreed to cooperate with the fact-finding.

THE MAJORITY of city voters forced to use provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 presidential election should have been able to vote regularly, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the City Commissioners. Of the 27,355 provisional ballots cast, 14,407 were from voters listed properly in poll books or supplemental sheets, and 5,263 were from people who properly registered but weren't included in polling material. One of the primary reasons for the errors, according to the report, was that the status of voters who were not 18 when they registered was not updated before polling material was printed.

Philadelphia's city commissioners moved a step closer Wednesday to understanding why voters had to cast more than twice as many provisional ballots in the 2012 presidential election as in 2008, but the initial review raised as many questions as it answered. Many of the problems occurred because of mistakes by poll workers and voters themselves, according to a preliminary report by Gregory Irving, the commissioners' acting voter registration administrator. In 2012, 27,355 voters cast provisional ballots, up from 12,733 in 2008.

Two Camden County races that narrowly favored Republican candidates as of the Election Day count flipped after officials counted provisional ballots and certified the results, the county said Wednesday. Camden and 13 other New Jersey counties were granted extensions last week to certify their results. Election officials had a significant delay in counting because of Hurricane Sandy, which prompted the state to let residents vote in any county. In the Stratford Borough Council race, Democrat Frank Gagliardi trailed Republican Albert Adolf by one vote Nov. 6. But when the county certified the results Tuesday, Gagliardi, the incumbent, had won by 15 votes, according to the Camden County Clerk's Office.

A public-interest law group is asking questions about whether New Jersey election officials counted ballots properly as voting rules changed in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The Constitutional Litigation Clinic at the Rutgers School of Law in Newark requested information Tuesday from election officials for the state and all 21 counties about how ballots were handled. The group wants to know details of procedures for processing applications and counting fax and e-mail ballots, and to see copies of the ballots.