Joseph Stalin — 'Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.'

The Palm Beach Post editorial board is not satisfied with the response by the Supervisor of Elections Office regarding their provisional ballot policy. The way the office handles provisional voting was laid bare during the primary election and had a profound effect on the local Lake Worth question on the bond issue. Click title for link. Here is a bit:

In the November 2012 presidential election, Bucher and the canvassing board threw out 18 legitimate ballots solely because of errors committed by precinct workers, our analysis of federal election data shows. In this year’s August primary, aPost investigation found that the canvassing board tossed at least 14 legitimate ballots just in the city of Lake Worth.
Disturbed by seeing their residents’ votes repressed, Lake Worth city officials have been calling for Bucher’s office to stop this vote-tossing policy and to make the canvassing board’s actions more transparent.
But Bucher’s attorney demurred, claiming that the canvassing board cannot “establish its own procedures for a broad category of potential ballot errors.” This is an odd stance, because creating its own procedures — flawed ones — is precisely what Bucher’s office has done.
Bucher says that the office’s long-standing policy is that ballots marred by clerical errors need to be tossed when those errors create doubts about whether the voters cast ballots in the correct primary (Democrat or Republican).
But such errors create no doubts about whether these people were entitled to vote. State law specifically states that provisional ballots “shall be counted” unless it’s determined “by a preponderance of the evidence that the person was not entitled to vote.”

Let's hope we don't have a parade of snafus today at the polling locations. Off to vote now, so we'll see how that goes.