Election board reviews provisional ballots
The Dubois County Election Board approved a provisional ballot Tuesday morning during a special emergency meeting.
Provisional ballots are used when there is a question regarding a voter’s qualification to vote in a certain precinct or if a voter is challenged as not qualified to vote in a certain precinct. An example would be if someone came into vote and did not have photo identification.
In the case of the provisional ballot approved during today’s meeting, it was due to the voter not signing the application. To receive a mail-in ballot in Indiana, voters must fill out an application and deliver it to the county clerk’s office. The clerk then mails the ballot out and the voter fills it out and returns it. The ballot signature and application signature are compared to verify they are the same.
When the application form and ballot were under review, inspectors found it lacked a signature on the application. This year, Indiana created a form that could be sent out to confirm a voter’s signature if a signature was missing. A voter has eight days to return the Signature Verification Form for their ballot to be confirmed. The clerk’s office received this one Monday.
Under inspection, all three board members agreed the signatures on the ballot and the signature on the verification form matched. They approved it unanimously.
Monday, the board had reviewed 25 other ballots and unanimously rejected them. According to Dubois County Clerk Amy Kippenbrock, most were rejected due to the voters failing to update their voter registration with the state when they moved or if they had not voted in an election (general or midterm) in several years. This is why it is important for voters to confirm they are registered to vote, she added.
In one case, an individual did not have photo identification and did not provide it to the election board within the period of time allotted to do so.
Election board member Roger Messmer commented the board was lucky there were no races close enough to be impacted by the provisional ballots.
“Thank our lucky stars we didn’t have a tie or a race within one vote,” board member John Birk said.
