Provisional ballots were the subject of this PolitiFact (PF) ruling on Bill Nelson, Democrat Senator from Florida, who garnered a “Mostly True.” He stated: “55% of people who cast a provisional ballot (in Florida) in last presidential election—their vote did not count.”
My conservative counterpart’s take on this is that there was a “good reason” that 55% of provisional ballots were rejected, and PolitiFact failed to elaborate on that. Unfortunately, no good reason was presented by him, either, except for more fallacies for fun and frivolity, this time that the obvious suppression of the vote of women and students is simply a “red herring.” Except if your last name is “White” (see video below).
But let’s first get the gist of this out of the way. In a previous post on “Mostly True” rulings, a rough percentage has been established of about 4% to as high as 15% from the precise numerical answer. According to Bryan White: “...As Nelson could justify rounding to 55 from 52.5, his number represents an inflation of only about 2 percent…” WRONG! It was 51.4% out of 55%, which represents an inflation of about 7 percent. Or, using the 52.5%, it would be just under 5 percent. Either one qualifies for a "Mostly True" ruling based on the literal statement. But of course, my counterpart would rather obfuscate the subjective issue of the “underlying argument” to his ideological benefit, seeing that he's much better at that than using a calculator.
Here is a Greg Palast video with something on provisional ballots, called Steal back your vote:
At about the 2:15 mark, Palast states that you won't lose your vote if your name is…John White…is that Bryan White’s brother? At about 2:30 he talks about provisional ballots, and how there's one chance in three the provisional ballot will be discarded.
An article at Alternet leads us to the basis of the “red herring” line of reasoning, also alluded to by writer Aaron Sharockman in the PolitiFact piece, which turns out to be more boilerplate GOP talking points on provisional ballots:
