MLive.com: NewsFlash - Appeals court reverses lower-court ruling on provisional ballots in Michigan

10/26/2004, 6:56 p.m. ET
By DAVID EGGERT

The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that provisional ballots cast outside the precinct where a voter resides cannot be counted in Michigan.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that said provisional ballots should be counted on Nov. 2 as long as they are cast in the right city, township or village.

Provisional ballots - required in all states for the first time this year - are used when voters say they are properly registered but their names are not on the registration rolls. The ballots are later counted if elections officials determine the voter is validly registered.

The three-judge appeals panel said the Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in 2002, 'does not require the state to count as valid those ballots that are cast outside of the precinct in which the voter resides.'

The Michigan case, the panel noted, is similar to a recent Ohio case in which the same panel ruled that provisional ballots cast by Ohio voters outside their own precincts should not be counted.

The Michigan Democratic Party, Bay County Democratic Party, the NAACP and voter-rights groups sued Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land last month, arguing that federal election law says some provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct should be counted. State officials had ordered that only provisional ballots cast in the correct precinct be counted.

'It's a relief that we don't have to implement new procedures just before the election,' Land spokeswoman Kelly Chesney said.

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