The Lake County Board of Elections and Registration Board reviewed more than 450 provisional ballots from the 2024 general election to determine whether the ballots should be accepted or rejected during its meeting Thursday.
There were 227 provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots, of which the board voted to accept 49 ballots and reject the rest. Some of the accepted ballots include voters who didn’t bring their ID with them, contingent on the voters bringing their ID’s to the election office by 12 p.m. Friday.
Other provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots that were accepted include instances of a voter in the work release program registering under the work release program, where he lived; poll worker or voting machine error; and a military mail-in ballot that was postmarked Oct. 28, which was ahead of the election.
Half of the provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots that were denied — 115 provisional ballots — were rejected because the voters had registration or address discrepancies.
The board also reviewed 34 provisional absentee mail-in ballots that were missing a signature, and eight of those were rejected and the remaining ballots accepted. Many of these ballots were people with special needs who have explained signature discrepancies because of their health conditions.
The board reviewed 192 provisional ballots that had signature discrepancies, of which 11 were rejected and the remaining ballots were accepted. While reviewing the ballots with signature discrepancies, the board approved the ballots the election office staff agreed, after review, that the signatures matched, and the remaining ballots were reviewed by the board members for final determination.
While reviewing the provisional ballots with signature discrepancies, Republican board member Michael Mellon voiced concern that in some cases the signatures the board members were comparing matched, but both signatures didn’t match the voter’s registration signature.
He made a motion that any of the ballots with signature discrepancies that were rejected do not get uploaded into the county’s voter registration system as the new signature. Democratic board member Bob Tribble made another motion for staff to reach out to voters whose ballots were rejected because of signature discrepancies to update their signatures.
“To explain to them that your signatures don’t match. If your signature has changed, come in with an ID because we need to get your new signature into the system,” Mellon said.
The board approved both motions.
akukulka@post-trib.com
