Election Officials Anticipate More Provisional Ballots Requested at Polls

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After several days of extended hours to help voters with mail in ballot issues, the election office in the Erie County Courthouse will turn its attention Tuesday to the processes for in person voting at the polls and pre-canvassing mail and early ballots already received, for counting when the polls close.

For people with any lingering ballot issues stemming from delays and duplicate ballot problems that election officials say originated with ballot and mail house vendor Election IQ, all of those will have to be addressed now at the polls.

Tonia Fernandez, Director of Elections said that the judge of elections at each precinct, and poll workers, have been told to expect more requests for provisional ballots than in a typical election. "We've let everyone know to expect an increase of provisional ballots requests. We've also supplied them with extra provisional ballot materials. All of our judges of elections have been trained on how to provide a provisional ballot to the voter properly, and we've also included some extra training material along with their supplies," Fernandez said.

If you didn't plan to vote in person and never received your requested mail ballot, you will be asked to vote with a provisional ballot. That will let election office staff make sure you didn't already vote by mail, before counting the provisional ballot. "Provisional ballots are counted the Friday after the election," Fernandez said.  "They go through what we call a discovery process.  We do a deeper dive into that voter's record, we make the determination, one if they're qualified to vote, two if they've already cast a vote by mail.  If they are qualified and they haven't voted already then that ballot will be counted," she said.

If your mail ballot arrived at the last minute. You can fill it out and submit it at the county drop box, or change your mind and vote in person, but you need to remit your whole ballot with envelopes. "A lot of voters who requested their ballot have received it late and maybe they're still holding on to it," Fernandez said.  "If they don't want to vote it and bring it to our drop box, then they can take it to the polls and remit it, and they can vote regularly at the poll."

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. and with high interest in the presidential race, Erie County Election officials expect polls to be busy.  Of some 42 thousand mail ballots requested, County Clerk of Elections Karen Chillcott said 74% have been returned, and that could be an indication of how turnout will be at the polls.