Provisional voting will get acid test Nov. 5

A new concept called provisional voting, approved this year by the Missouri Legislature, is much in the news these days.

Provisional voting refers to the practice, already adopted by more than a dozen states, of allowing ballots to be cast by voters even when there is some question as to their residency or other legal qualification for voting. Provisional balloting allows voting at polling places on Election Day but defers to a later date a decision as to whether to count the ballot.

The situation was highlighted in the St. Louis area during the 2000 election, when thousands of people claimed they were being denied the opportunity to vote owing, for the most part, to the fact that they had moved in the months before Election Day and hadn't bothered to notify election authorities of this fact.

Action by state lawmakers actually predated passage of a federal election-reform bill that mandates provisional voting. A leader in crafting this year's federal election-reform bill -- one of the few major bipartisan compromises of an otherwise dysfunctional U.S. Senate -- was Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri.

Election authorities, joined by Bond and Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt, are concerned because a large number of provisional votes could well delay the decision in a close race such as Missouri's race this year for the U.S. Senate seat. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Talent is challenging Sen. Jean Carnahan.

Morover, opportunities exist to game the system, even including the commission of widespread vote fraud, if carefully designed safeguards are cast aside. Election authorities in Kansas City have said they expect few -- "perhaps a dozen" -- provisional ballots. But St. Louis officials have said they expect tens of thousands.

In his capacity as Missouri's chief elction official, Blunt has promulgated commonsense rules for provisional voting. Under these rules, bipartisan teams of election judges will be assigned to handle the provisional ballots to determine the status of voters.

Another bipartisan team will be in charge of tabulating the approved provisional votes.

A provisional ballot will be offered to a would-be voter after:

A voter's name can't be found on registered-voter rolls at the polling place and a phone call to election headquarters still can't verify a voter's eligibility.

It is determined that a voter's eligibility cannot immediately be determined.

This procedure is the result of a lawsuit filed by State Auditor Claire McCaskill and a Democratic state senator. The case was resolved when the plaintiffs and Blunt agreed on these rules with the approval of Circuit Court Judge Byron Kinder in Cole County, where the suit was filed.

Provisional voting is a positive step forward and one that significantly expands the voting franchise in our state and nation.

However, Secretary of State Blunt is correct to offer a word of caution. It is essential that reasonable rules for provisional voting be upheld. Otherwise, the process will descend into the kind of massive fraud that characterized the 2000 election in St. Louis and proved so embarrassing to the state.