Editing Provisional ballot (section)

==Rates of acceptance==

According to the Election Assistance Commission thousands of provisional ballots are not counted each election.

The [[2004 US Presidential Election]] was the first presidential election conducted under the Help America Vote Act's provisions. Nationwide, at least 1.9 million provisional ballots were cast, and 676,000 were never counted due to various states' rules on counting provisional ballots.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Let The Recounts Begin |url=http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/1103nj1.htm|url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108225527/http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/1103nj1.htm|archivedate=Nov 8, 2006|website=National Journal|accessdate=May 10, 2022}}</ref>

Studies of the use of provisional ballots in the [[United States general elections, 2006|2006 general election in the United States]] show that around 21% of provisional ballots were rejected. About 44% of these were cast by voters who were not registered, but many other rejections were for reasons that were "preventable," such as an incorrect precinct or missing signature.<ref name=":2">[http://www.advancementproject.org/pdfs/Provisional-Ballot-Report-Final-9-16-08.pdf Provisional Voting: Fail-Safe Voting or Trapdoor to Disenfranchisement] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022184913/http://www.advancementproject.org/pdfs/Provisional-Ballot-Report-Final-9-16-08.pdf |date=2008-10-22 }}, [http://www.advancementproject.org/ Advancement Project], Sept. 16, 2008</ref>

The rates of rejection vary widely across the states, with some states counting all or nearly all provisional ballots while others reject more than half.<ref name=":2" />