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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Diane Solov
Plain Dealer Reporter
The questions about provisional ballots haven't gotten any easier, but there is a preliminary answer to how many of the controversial ballots will be discarded in Cuyahoga County.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections voted Monday to reject one out of three of the 24,472 provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election.
The bulk of the 8,099 invalidated ballots were determined to have been cast by nonregistered voters or registered voters who cast their ballots in the wrong precinct. Voters received provisional ballots at the polls on Election Day if their names did not appear on the voter rolls.
Among Ohio's 88 counties, Cuyahoga County had the largest number of the controversial ballots, which pre-election predictions had said could rival the hanging chad as a blemish on official election results.
In the 2000 election, about 17 percent of provisional ballots were invalidated, compared with 33 percent in this election.
The numbers may fluctuate slightly as elections workers finalize vote counts in the last week before the board votes Monday to certify the election results, said Michael Vu, the county's elections director.
As county elections workers stood watch over a hand truck bearing 10 boxes stuffed with invalidated ballots, an ensemble of lawyers, professors and others who were active in voter registration drives made it clear that the board's decision won't quell the lingering disquiet about the possibility that some legitimate votes won't be counted.
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