North Carolina Provisional Ballot Fight
Blogging has been sporadic over the past few days, because I'm in Minneapolis coaching our civil rights moot court team, but there's news from North Carolina over an election from November that's still unresolved. As noted here, a judge in Wake County, North Carolina is hearing argument in a case involving the disputed race for state superintendent of public instruction. The Democratic candidate led by about 8500 votes at the end of November, but the state supreme court ruled that some 11,000 provisional ballots cast out of precinct shouldn't be counted. Then on Tuesday of this week, the General Assembly gave final approval to a law providing that such provisional ballots should be counted and the bill's going to the government for approval.

My take: The North Carolina case demonstrates that it's essential to have clear rules prescribed in advance for the counting of provisional ballots. The absence of such rules leaves open the possibility of such post hoc gamesmanship, on the part of either courts or legislative bodies. - posted by Dan Tokaji @ 11:20 PM