In late September, about a dozen volunteers gathered at the Career and Technical Center in Chesterfield County to refresh the skills they’ll need come Election Day.
The session was about provisional ballots: when and why to issue them, and how to navigate the election rules.
In Virginia, provisional ballots are used when a would-be voter’s registration or qualification to vote is in question. For example, if the poll book says they have already voted or they have requested an absentee ballot that has not already been returned. Provisional ballots are stored and counted separately from other votes.
“If the voter comes in to present themselves to vote and it is going to show that they voted already, there’s really no way that we can manage and figure out what happened on Election Day,” said Leslie Foreman, the county’s elections manager, who taught the session. “That’s when provisional ballots come into play.”
Chesterfield elections don’t have hard numbers yet, but Foreman said this election is drawing enough attention that it has spiked the number of people coming out to volunteer.
In previous election cycles, Foreman said, “I would get no applications for a week or two. Now I can go into my inbox and have 15 or 20 overnight.”
She added that some of her training sessions have included as many as 60 volunteers.
One of the Sept. 30 session volunteers was Sanjay Rajput, who has volunteered for eight years.
“As people got more concerned about the integrity of the elections, I wanted to make sure that I had a good answer to the folks who said they didn’t trust how the election processes were run,” he said. ”I wanted to be a part of that and make sure that the process was running smoothly.”
As an exercise, Foreman presented a scenario in which Pharrell Williams showed up to vote — but the system indicated that he had already cast a ballot. She displayed on an overhead screen the information that would appear next to his name in the poll book.
She pointed to a line in the fictional poll book: Williams’ brother had voted previously the same day.
“I’m curious how many of you put a note in there that his brother voted earlier in the day?” she asked, referring to Pharoah Williams III. That, she pointed out, could be the root of the system’s confusion indicating Pharrell Williams had already voted.
Foreman recommended handing him a provisional ballot, just in case.
“At the end of the day, the goal … is to make sure that those voters have the chance to vote,” she said.
Rajput said he felt volunteering was a tremendous source of pride.
“I’m one of the people ensuring that the integrity of the election is sound,” he said. “Being able to say I was part of that makes me proud.”