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Provisional
Ballots/Identification Documentation
Under its provisions, Ohio
allowed people who were registered to vote in Ohio, and who had moved
within the state, but who had not notified their Board of Elections
of their new address, to vote by provisional ballot. The ballot was
counted as soon as the voter’s registration was verified. Moving
without notifying the Board was one of the major reasons people
couldn’t vote, so this Act served to re-enfranchise tens of
thousands of Ohioans.
Identification requirements.
Before 2002, Ohio never required
any kind of identification documentation. Your signature was your
identification, reinforced by the warning that registration or voting
fraud was a serious criminal offense.
The Help America Vote Act of
2002 introduced the first
identification requirements. The Act states that voters must provide
identification in order to register. It also provides that anyone who
registers by mail must show ID the first time they show up to vote.
In 2006, House Bill 3 expanded that ID requirement to cover all voters at
all elections. Every voter must now show one of a list of specific ID
documents at
every election:
- Government photo ID (Ohio Driver's license or State ID - showing either your current address or your former address, as long as the ID has not expired),
- OR one of the following that shows your current address:
- military ID
- copy of a current utility bill
- bank statement
- paycheck
- government check
- government document showing your name and current address (Note: You cannot use the notice you received from the Board of Elections.)
Proponents of this requirement
say it will prevent voting fraud by preventing people from voting
under someone else’s name or from voting multiple times. Opponents
say that such fraud is extremely rare, and the ID requirement will
disproportionately disenfranchise the elderly, housebound, youth,
low-income and minorities, who will have difficulty obtaining the
required documentation.
Provisional ballots.
Anyone who does not provide the
required documentation must vote by provisional ballot. These ballots
may or may not be counted, depending on whether the voter’s
registration can be verified as matching any information provided on
Election Day. (The voter can find out whether the vote was counted by
calling a specific telephone number after Election Day, but the voter
cannot contest the decision to count or not count the ballot.)
A wide variety of voters will be
required to vote a provisional ballot, including anyone who changed
his or her name without notifying the Board, even if the voter has
not moved. (This will most likely affect primarily women who change
their name upon marriage but who continue to live at the same
address.)
The increase in the number of
provisional ballots will cause changes in polling place and Board
procedures. Each provisional ballot requires a lengthy series of
forms to be completed by the poll worker and the voter. The Board of
Elections must check the validity of the ID for each provisional
ballot, and each ballot must be processed by hand. This may make it
more difficult to process all ballots in time to complete the
official canvass of votes by the newly imposed deadline. | 
