What if there aren't enough ballots printed?

[goddess40]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/266144.asp


Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, citing vote-fraud concerns, is
publicly balking at a City of Milwaukee request for almost 260,000
additional ballots in anticipation of high turnout for the Nov. 2
presidential election.

Mayor Tom Barrett blasted Walker's stance, and Common Council President
Willie Hines Jr. immediately joined in, saying it was an attempt to
suppress the central-city vote.

"I'm going to lay this at the footsteps of the county if there aren't
enough ballots in the city," said Barrett.

Barrett said that the 679,000 ballots the county had agreed to print were
less than the amount prepared for the presidential election in 2000 as well
as for the the gubernatorial race in 2002. He and the city's top election
official said that the city requested 938,000 ballots from the county,
which, by law, pays for and prints ballots

[michigandem2]

1. i actually thought about this...

if we do have a HUGE HUGE turnout..what if they run out of ballots...

[goddess40]

2. I just e-mailed Linda Honold, WI Dem Chair

I hope she answers me.

[mosin]

3. I can't imagine

why you'd need 938,000 ballots in a city with 423,811 residents of voting age. I suspect they'll be fine with a 56% surplus of ballots.

[claudiajean]

4. Not necessarily....

...don't forget provisional ballots, and that people don't always vote where they are registered. And that they sometimes try to vote when they are not registered at all. But all of these voters should receive a provisional ballot.

In counties where there is a large city as the center of the population, and significant suburbs of that city, it is not unrealistic to expect that some of the precincts in the city are going to have "200%" turnout if they are loacted in an area where many people may be casting out of precinct provisional ballots.

(Provisional ballots use the same ballot blank -- but rather than going directly into the ballot box, the ballot is placed in a special envelope and processed for eligibility prior to tabulation, much as an absentee ballot is. So the extra ballots needed for the provisionals must be added to the amounts needed for the regular poll voters expected.)

It is extremely difficult for election officials to predict ahead of time where these areas may be, so the prudent election official orders 200% poll ballots in urban areas of a county with a major city. It is far better to have too many ballots than too few.

156% is far too low for the City of Milwaukee.