Board of Elections approves provisional ballots

JEFFERSON — The Ashtabula County Board of Elections met on Friday morning to approve provisional ballots cast in the presidential election earlier this month.

The board accepted 926 provisional ballots, out of 1,026 that were cast in the Nov. 3 election, said John Mead, deputy director of the Ashtabula County BoE.

“The vast majority were accepted,” Mead said.

Provisional ballots are given to voters whose eligibility to vote is in question, and allow election workers to verify that the person is able to vote, according to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.

The approval of the provisional ballots went smoothly, Mead said.

Of the 100 votes that were rejected, 63 were because the voter was not registered and 17 were because the voter attempted to vote in the wrong precinct, Mead said.

The remaining 20 ballots were rejected for a number of different reasons. Five ballots were rejected because no identification was provided in the allotted time, five were rejected for having the wrong address, three were rejected for not having an address, two were rejected for not having a signature and one was rejected for not having a name printed on it, Mead said.

Four ballots were rejected because the person had already voted.

“They requested an absentee ballot, they were given the absentee ballot, they voted that absentee ballot and they came to the polls anyway,” Mead said. “And our system says, ‘no no no no, you can’t do that.’ You obviously can’t do that.”

Those four may have been unsure of whether or not their absentee ballot was counted, Mead said.

The 926 accepted absentee ballots will now be counted, Mead said. On Friday, employees were preparing ballots to be counted, he said.

On Nov. 18, the provisional ballots will be included into the results, and the election will be certified, Mead said.