{"id":13881,"date":"2024-10-17T16:18:34","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T16:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=13881"},"modified":"2024-10-19T01:42:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T01:42:18","slug":"provisional-ballots-why-thousands-of-young-voters-ballots-get-tossed-and-how-to-avoid-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2024\/10\/17\/provisional-ballots-why-thousands-of-young-voters-ballots-get-tossed-and-how-to-avoid-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Provisional ballots: Why thousands of young voters’ ballots get tossed, and how to avoid it"},"content":{"rendered":"
Duke University senior Catherine Flanagan arrived at the March 2024 polls excited and prepared, with her driver\u2019s license and list of preferred candidates in hand.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018This will be a breeze. I’ll just fly straight through,\u2019\u201d said Flanagan.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n B<\/span>u<\/span>t she barely made it inside before discovering that her New York driver\u2019s license would not be acce<\/span>pted due to a technicality: under North Carolina\u2019s new voter ID laws, out-of-state IDs are only valid if a voter registers within 90 days of the election.<\/p>\n Flanagan was handed a provisional ballot, a temporary ballot issued when a voter\u2019s eligibility is in question. To ensure her vote counted, she would need to come back later, bringing her passport to the county Board of Elections office.<\/p>\n But she couldn\u2019t make it. \u201cI didn’t have a car on campus, and so I was lucky to have even made it to the polls,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n Her provisional ballot was thrown away, along with those of hundreds of other students, according to <\/span>State Board of Elections data<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI felt guilty and a little silly for having taken the time to do all of that,\u201d said Flanagan.<\/span><\/p>\n Youth votes can sway election outcomes. In 2008, the last time <\/span>North Carolina <\/span><\/a>voted blue<\/span> in a presidential election, youth voters helped flip the state. Barack Obama won the state by less than one percent, and <\/span>e<\/span>xit polls<\/span><\/a> revealed that he lost every age group except 18- to 29-year-olds.<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n The stakes are high as Election Day approaches, with Harris and Trump running neck and neck in North Carolina. Yet, since the 2008 election, young people in North Carolina have been issued provisional ballots at disproportionate rates, a trend that has complicated the voting process and left many students confused. <\/span>Between 2008 and 2020<\/span><\/a>, youth voters in North Carolina were 14 times more likely to cast provisional ballots than were voters older than 65.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n