At their best, provisional ballots provide voters who would otherwise be turned away from the polls to have their votes counted, but at their worst, the offer of a provisional ballot can be "a way to brush off troublesome voters by letting them think they have voted". It is possible for parties to force certain voters to cast provisional ballots so they can suppress the vote total of an opponent being counted on election night. (Source).
The following is an excerpt from the 11/11/2016 airing of the Thom Hartmann Radio Program (edited for brevity and clarity by me).
Thom Hartmann: Yesterday I said I was going to share these exit poll results with you, but I couldn't verify them. I've now seen them from 3 different sources. ... this came from CNN and is available through tdmsresearch.com (Exit Polls and Computerized Vote Counts.
What they're pointing out is that, in North Carolina, according to the exit polls, Hillary Clinton won by 2%. But according to the official count? Donald Trump won by 3.8% [5.8% swing]. How does that happen? How so you get that much of a swing, which probably swung the Senate race as well.
In Pennsylvania, the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 4.4%, and presumably the down ticket Democrats [won by a similar margin per the exit polls]. Yet the official count was that Donald Trump won by 1.1% [5.5% swing]. In Wisconsin, the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 3.9%. Yet the official count says Donald Trump won by 9/10th of a percent [aproximate 4% swing]. In Florida the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 1.4%. Yet the official count showed that Donald Trump won by 1.3% [2.7% swing].
If those four states had gone the way of the exit polls - North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida - Hillary Clinton would be president, and Democrats would control the Senate. A number of people are saying this is proof the voting machines are rigged. I think that the exit polls were probably right.
The Republicans for 40 years now -- this goes back to Paul Weyrich - have been pushing this idea that there's voter fraud out there, and therefore we need to take people off the voting rolls because they might fradulently vote. [Kansas Secretary of State] Kris Kobach has this list of roughly 7 million people, the Interstate Crosscheck, well funded by petro-billionaires. And he's got some 30-odd Republican controlled states working with him to throw people off the voting rolls [actual number of states that use the Interstate Crosscheck is 27].
As Greg Palast laid out here [on the program when he was a guest last week]. It's mostly people with common names. You get a "Jim Washington" in Wisconsin and a "James Washington" in Florida. According to Kris Kobach they're the same person. So take them both off the voter rolls. It's somebody trying to commit voter fraud.
When, in fact, it's just a common name among African Americans. Last names of "Hernandez", "Kim" or "Park". Ethnic names are among the most common now in the United States. As opposed to the old Anglo-Saxon ethnic names like "Smith" and "Jones". They are still common, but not like this.
People went in and thought they voted. But they weren't on the voter rolls and were given a provisional ballot which never got counted. Which swung an election. Like in North Carolina, but 5.8 points.
The following is an excerpt from the 11/11/2016 airing of the Thom Hartmann Radio Program (edited for brevity and clarity by me).
Thom Hartmann: Yesterday I said I was going to share these exit poll results with you, but I couldn't verify them. I've now seen them from 3 different sources. ... this came from CNN and is available through tdmsresearch.com (Exit Polls and Computerized Vote Counts.
What they're pointing out is that, in North Carolina, according to the exit polls, Hillary Clinton won by 2%. But according to the official count? Donald Trump won by 3.8% [5.8% swing]. How does that happen? How so you get that much of a swing, which probably swung the Senate race as well.
In Pennsylvania, the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 4.4%, and presumably the down ticket Democrats [won by a similar margin per the exit polls]. Yet the official count was that Donald Trump won by 1.1% [5.5% swing]. In Wisconsin, the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 3.9%. Yet the official count says Donald Trump won by 9/10th of a percent [aproximate 4% swing]. In Florida the exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by 1.4%. Yet the official count showed that Donald Trump won by 1.3% [2.7% swing].
If those four states had gone the way of the exit polls - North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida - Hillary Clinton would be president, and Democrats would control the Senate. A number of people are saying this is proof the voting machines are rigged. I think that the exit polls were probably right.
The Republicans for 40 years now -- this goes back to Paul Weyrich - have been pushing this idea that there's voter fraud out there, and therefore we need to take people off the voting rolls because they might fradulently vote. [Kansas Secretary of State] Kris Kobach has this list of roughly 7 million people, the Interstate Crosscheck, well funded by petro-billionaires. And he's got some 30-odd Republican controlled states working with him to throw people off the voting rolls [actual number of states that use the Interstate Crosscheck is 27].
As Greg Palast laid out here [on the program when he was a guest last week]. It's mostly people with common names. You get a "Jim Washington" in Wisconsin and a "James Washington" in Florida. According to Kris Kobach they're the same person. So take them both off the voter rolls. It's somebody trying to commit voter fraud.
When, in fact, it's just a common name among African Americans. Last names of "Hernandez", "Kim" or "Park". Ethnic names are among the most common now in the United States. As opposed to the old Anglo-Saxon ethnic names like "Smith" and "Jones". They are still common, but not like this.
People went in and thought they voted. But they weren't on the voter rolls and were given a provisional ballot which never got counted. Which swung an election. Like in North Carolina, but 5.8 points.