# How a Provisional Ballot Is Cast and Counted Every other map in this set follows a ballot that was never in doubt. [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]] puts the names on the paper, [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] turns the marks into a number, [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] moves the paper, [[State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk]] is the clock, and [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] turns the number into a certificate. This map follows the other ballot — the one handed to a voter **whose eligibility could not be resolved at the polling place.** Their name is not in the book, or they cannot produce the required identification, or an official has challenged them, or the roll says they were already sent a mail ballot. They are not turned away. They are given an envelope. The federal floor is one section of the [[Help America Vote Act]], 52 U.S.C. § 21082. It is short, and almost everything it does, it does before the voter leaves the room. The central fact about this ballot is an asymmetry that a voter has no way to see. **Federal law gives you an enforceable right to cast a provisional ballot and no right whatsoever to have it counted.** In 2004 the Sixth Circuit held both halves of that in a single opinion: the phrase *"shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot"* creates an individual right enforceable in court, and *"HAVA does not require that any particular ballot, whether provisional or 'regular,' must be counted as valid."* Whether the envelope is opened is a question of state law from that sentence onward — which is why this is a process flow and not a paragraph. The envelope is federal. The contents are fifty separate decisions. With the general election on **3 November 2026**, two of those decisions are the ones a voter can still do something about: **the cure window**, which in some states closes the next afternoon, and **whether anyone will tell them the ballot was rejected.** Parts C and F are where those live. > [!note] How to read this chart > `■` marks a part · `◆` marks a stage or branch · `▸` marks a lane or column · `⏱` marks a deadline · `◎` marks **the hinge — a point where federal law stops and state law decides** · `⊘` marks a duty or route **foreclosed by statutory text** rather than by anyone's discretion · `✱` marks the structural point of a block · `⚑` marks something that **changed for November 2026** · `◈` marks **a figure derived here from published data rather than reported as such anywhere**, explained in the Notes · `[bracketed]` notes are dated caveats. "Day N" means N days after election day unless stated otherwise. Everything inside the fence is a **statute, a rule, a clock, a state or a number** — this map is built to stay true as people rotate, and **no current officeholder is named anywhere on it.** Statute and case names inside the fence are plain text; the linked versions are in the Notes and See also. ``` HOW A PROVISIONAL BALLOT IS CAST AND COUNTED — the federal law ends at the envelope, and the fifty answers inside it are where the ballot lives or dies (as of 22 October 2026) │ Legend: ◆ stage ▸ lane / column ⏱ deadline ◎ federal law stops, state law decides │ ⊘ foreclosed by statutory text ✱ structural point ⚑ changed for Nov 2026 │ ◈ figure derived here, see Notes │ ■ PART A — THE FIVE DOORS INTO THE ENVELOPE │ ├─ A provisional ballot is not a kind of vote. It is a KIND OF DELAY: the ballot is marked │ now and the eligibility question is answered later, by someone else, somewhere else. │ ├─◆ TRIGGER 1 · NOT ON THE LIST │ └─ The name does not appear on the polling place's official list of eligible voters. │ This is the condition the statute was written for. ✱ It is also, years later, the │ single most common reason the same ballot is thrown away — see Part G. │ ├─◆ TRIGGER 2 · NO ACCEPTABLE IDENTIFICATION │ ├─ The voter is on the list but cannot produce what state law requires at the desk. │ └─ ⚑ This door widened for 2026 in several states that tightened ID at the same time: │ Ohio stopped accepting non-photo documents (utility bills, Social Security cards); │ Iowa ended vouching by another voter; Georgia requires the physical licence rather │ than a digital one; North Carolina requires photo ID with provisional as the │ fallback. ✱ Tightening ID at the desk does not reduce voting — it MOVES voting │ into Part C, where a different and much shorter clock applies. │ ├─◆ TRIGGER 3 · CHALLENGED │ └─ An election official or (in some states) a partisan challenger asserts the voter is │ ineligible. The voter votes provisionally and the assertion is adjudicated later. │ ├─◆ TRIGGER 4 · THE ROLL SAYS A MAIL BALLOT WAS ALREADY SENT OR RECEIVED │ └─ The voter shows up in person without the mail ballot, or believes the one they │ returned was never recorded. The provisional envelope is the reconciliation device. │ ├─◆ TRIGGER 5 · THE POLLS WERE HELD OPEN BY COURT ORDER │ └─ Anyone voting in the extended hours may vote ONLY provisionally, and those envelopes │ must be kept separate from all the others [52 U.S.C. § 21082(c)] — so that a │ reviewing court can discard exactly that set if the order is later undone. │ └─◆ THE RIGHT TO BE HANDED ONE IS ENFORCEABLE IN COURT ├─ HAVA creates no private cause of action of its own, but the Sixth Circuit held in │ 2004 that § 302(a)'s "shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot" is │ rights-creating and mandatory, and so is enforceable by an individual voter under │ 42 U.S.C. § 1983: "The right to cast a provisional ballot is neither vague nor │ amorphous." [Sandusky County Democratic Party v. Blackwell, 6th Cir., 26 Oct 2004] └─ ⊘ THE RIGHT TO HAVE IT COUNTED DOES NOT EXIST. Same case, same opinion: "HAVA does not require that any particular ballot, whether provisional or 'regular,' must be counted as valid." ✱ THIS IS THE ORGANIZING FACT OF THE WHOLE MAP. Federal law is a guarantee about a piece of paper, not about a vote. ■ PART B — WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE THE VOTER LEAVES THE ROOM (the federal floor) │ ├─◆ STEP 1 · THE WRITTEN AFFIRMATION │ ├─ The voter signs a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, that they are │ │ "a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the individual desires to vote" │ │ and "eligible to vote in that election" [§ 21082(a)(2)]. │ └─ ◎ THE WORD "JURISDICTION" IS THE FIRST HINGE, AND IT WAS DECIDED AGAINST THE VOTER. │ A district court read it as the COUNTY — the unit that actually holds the │ registration records. The Sixth Circuit reversed, reading it as the precinct, and │ said flatly that "being eligible under state law to vote means eligible to vote in │ this specific election in this specific polling place." Had the county reading │ survived, Part E would not exist. │ ├─◆ STEP 2 · THE DOUBLE ENVELOPE │ ├─ Ballot marked in secret → sealed in a secrecy envelope → sealed inside the outer │ │ provisional envelope, which carries the affidavit, the voter's current address and │ │ the signatures of the precinct officials, who also record WHY the ballot was issued. │ └─ ✱ The reason written on that envelope is the entire evidentiary record of the │ encounter. Everything decided in Parts D and E is decided from it. │ ├─◆ STEP 3 · SEGREGATION │ └─ The envelope never enters the tabulator with the day's other ballots. It goes into a │ separate container, and the count it will or will not join has already been reported. │ ✱ This is why provisional ballots are structurally a late-counted, and therefore │ publicly contested, category of vote — see the discussion of the late-count shift. │ └─◆ STEP 4 · THE ONE THING THE VOTER IS OWED IN WRITING ├─ At the time of casting, the voter must receive written information that they "will │ be able to ascertain" whether the vote was counted and, if not, "the reason that the │ vote was not counted" [§ 21082(a)(5)(A)]. └─ ◎ Read it closely: the promise is that the answer will EXIST and be retrievable. Nothing in the sentence promises anyone will deliver it. Part F is that gap. ■ PART C — THE CURE WINDOW (⏱ the shortest clock a voter ever faces) │ ├─ Where a state lets the voter fix the problem — produce the ID, prove the registration — │ the window is measured in HOURS OR DAYS, it starts on election night, and in most states │ nobody phones to start it. Selected deadlines, sorted by how little time they give: │ ├─◆ ▸ NEXT DAY │ ├─ Montana ............. 5:00 p.m. the day after the election │ ├─ Rhode Island ....... 4:00 p.m. the day after the election │ └─ Wyoming ............ close of business the day after the election │ ├─◆ ▸ TWO TO FOUR DAYS │ ├─ Georgia ............ 3 days after the election │ └─ Ohio ............... 4 days after the election │ ├─◆ ▸ THE WEEKEND, THEN A MONDAY OR FRIDAY DEADLINE │ ├─ Arkansas .......... noon on the Monday after the election │ ├─ Utah ............... close of office hours on the Monday after │ ├─ Alabama ........... 5:00 p.m. on the Friday after the election │ ├─ Virginia .......... noon on the Friday after the election │ └─ Wisconsin ......... 8:00 p.m. on election day to poll workers, OR 4:00 p.m. on the │ Friday after the election to the municipal clerk │ ├─◆ ▸ FIVE DAYS TO TWO WEEKS │ ├─ Michigan .......... 6 calendar days ├─ Texas ........ 6 calendar days, and the │ ├─ Arizona ........... 5 business days │ voter must appear at the │ ├─ Mississippi ....... 5 business days │ registrar's office │ ├─ Illinois .......... 7 days to provide ID; the authority then has 14 days to decide │ ├─ Indiana .......... counted by 3:00 p.m. on day 10 │ └─ North Dakota ..... 13 days after the election │ ├─◆ ⚑ TWO STATES MOVED THIS CLOCK FOR 2026, IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS │ ├─ North Carolina — EASIER. H.B. 834 moved several cure deadlines from the third to the │ │ FIFTH business day after the election, covering missing registration information, │ │ producing ID, curing a provisional problem and fixing a mail-ballot error. ✱ And it │ │ did the thing almost no other state does: county boards MUST NOTIFY the voter of a │ │ fixable problem by the end of the next business day. That converts the cure window │ │ from something the voter must discover into something the state must announce. │ └─ Iowa — TIGHTER. A voter without acceptable ID votes provisionally and must bring the │ documents by NOON ON THE MONDAY after election day, or the ballot does not count. │ └─ ✱ THE STRUCTURAL POINT OF PART C: the cure window is the only stage of this flow the voter can act on, and it is the stage they are least likely to know about. A deadline that runs from election night and is communicated by a leaflet handed over during the most confusing five minutes of the voter's day is a deadline most people will miss. ■ PART D — WHO DECIDES, AND WHEN │ ├─◆ THE DECIDER IS A COUNTY BODY, NOT A COURT AND NOT THE STATE │ ├─ A county board of elections or board of canvassers rules on each envelope: is the │ │ affidavit complete, is the person in fact registered, was any required cure made. │ └─ ✱ Same mismatch the canvass map found: a consequential adjudication of an individual │ legal right, performed by a small body of general-purpose local officials, under a │ deadline, on a record consisting of one envelope. │ ├─◆ THE CLOCK IS THE CANVASS CLOCK │ ├─ ⏱ Pennsylvania — the county board must review and decide EVERY election-day │ │ provisional ballot within SEVEN DAYS of the election; a ballot challenged during the │ │ canvass gets a hearing within seven days of the challenge. │ │ [Dept. of State provisional-voting guidance v2.4, issued 18 September 2026] │ ├─ ⏱ Colorado — counting finishes within 9 days of most elections. │ └─ ◎ There is no federal deadline for this determination at all. The provisional │ decision is squeezed inside whatever canvass deadline the state already set, which │ is why a state with a tight canvass has a tight provisional review by implication │ rather than by design. │ └─◆ IF THE DETERMINATION IS THAT THE VOTER WAS ELIGIBLE └─ The ballot "shall be counted as a vote in that election IN ACCORDANCE WITH STATE LAW" [§ 21082(a)(4)]. ✱ Six words that hand Part E the whole question: eligibility and countability are separate findings, and a voter can win the first and lose the second. ■ PART E — THE WRONG-PRECINCT VARIABLE ◎ THE HINGE THAT DECIDES THE MOST BALLOTS │ ├─ The voter was eligible. They were simply standing in the wrong room. What happens next │ is purely a state choice, because the 2004 holding removed the federal answer. │ ├─◆ ▸ COUNTED IN FULL ......................................... 1 state │ └─ Maine. [⚠ but see Part H — the federal survey lists Maine among the states that do │ not use provisional ballots as a separate category at all] │ ├─◆ ▸ COUNTED IN PART ........................................ 20 states │ ├─ The envelope is opened and only the contests the voter WOULD have been entitled to │ │ vote in at their correct precinct are counted. The rest of their marks are discarded. │ ├─ Pennsylvania — wrong district inside the CORRECT COUNTY is generally partially │ │ counted; a voter registered in another county cannot be counted at all, though the │ │ board is told to check whether a transfer application was wrongly denied. │ └─ ✱ A partial count is not a compromise, it is a SILENT one. Nothing on the page tells │ the voter which of their votes survived. │ ├─◆ ▸ NOT COUNTED AT ALL ..................................... 26 states │ └─ The entire envelope is rejected — including the votes for President, Senate and │ Governor, offices for which the precinct the voter stood in made no difference to │ their eligibility whatsoever. │ └─ ✱ THE STRUCTURAL POINT OF PART E: this is the largest single variable in the system and it turns on a boundary line the voter is least equipped to get right. Precinct lines move between elections, several precincts often share one building, and the authority that holds the registration record is the COUNTY — which is exactly the reading of "jurisdiction" the 2004 court rejected. In a majority of states, a voter who is registered, eligible, identified and in the right county still loses every vote on the ballot for being in the wrong room. ■ PART F — WHETHER THE VOTER IS EVER TOLD ◎ THE SECOND GAP, AND THE DELIBERATE ONE │ ├─◆ WHAT THE STATUTE REQUIRES │ ├─ Every state must "establish a free access system (such as a toll-free telephone │ │ number or an Internet website)" through which the voter can learn whether the ballot │ │ counted and, if not, why [§ 21082(a)(5)(B)]. │ └─ Access to any individual provisional ballot's information "shall be restricted to │ the individual who cast the ballot" [§ 21082(a)(5), final paragraph]. │ ├─◆ ✱ IT IS A PULL SYSTEM, NOT A PUSH SYSTEM — AND THAT IS WHAT THE TEXT SAYS │ ├─ The federal duty is to BUILD A LOOKUP. There is no federal duty to contact the │ │ voter, at any point, ever. The reason the ballot was rejected is generated, stored, │ │ made retrievable, and then waits for a voter who has no particular reason to think │ │ anything went wrong to go looking for it. │ └─ ⊘ And the privacy clause forecloses the obvious workaround by statutory text: a │ campaign, a party or a voter-protection group CANNOT be given the list of rejected │ provisional voters in order to go and tell them. Only the voter may ask. │ ├─◆ ▸ THE HANDFUL OF STATES THAT AFFIRMATIVELY TELL THE VOTER SOMETHING │ ├─ Alaska ............ a letter stating whether the ballot was rejected or part-counted │ ├─ Florida .......... a written notice of rights at the time of casting, explaining how │ │ to check and, if rejected, why │ ├─ Colorado ......... a receipt explaining how to check status │ ├─ Indiana .......... counties must offer a toll-free number or website showing accepted │ │ or rejected [the § 21082(a)(5)(B) floor, met explicitly] │ ├─ Hawaii ........... status and reason available by phone or online │ └─ ⚑ North Carolina — the strongest version in the country for 2026, and the only one │ on this list that is a DUTY TO REACH OUT rather than a duty to be reachable: │ notice of a fixable problem by the end of the next business day (Part C). │ └─ ✱ THE STRUCTURAL POINT OF PART F: a voter in a non-notifying state whose ballot was rejected for a curable reason, inside a cure window that has since closed, will usually never learn any of it — not because anyone concealed it, but because the statute asked for a filing cabinet instead of a phone call. ⚑ Pennsylvania's own 2026 guidance is the ordinary case: status is checkable at a state website, a county board or a state hotline, and the guidance "does not require general notice of the outcome to every voter." ■ PART G — WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS TO THEM (2024, the most recent federal cycle) │ ├─◆ ▸ THE VOLUMES │ ├─ Issued .......................... ~1,736,209 (0.87% of votes counted) │ ├─ Counted at least in part ....... ~1,281,399 │ └─ Rejected ........................ ~436,258 (0.29% of ballots counted) │ ◈ That is a REJECTION RATE OF ABOUT 25% — roughly one provisional ballot in four — │ derived here by dividing those two published figures, which are reported as counts │ and not as a rate. [MIT Election Data and Science Lab, from federal survey data] │ ├─◆ ▸ WHY THEY WERE REJECTED, IN ORDER │ ├─ 1. The voter was not on the state's voter list ....... ~50% of rejections │ ├─ 2. The voter was registered in another jurisdiction in the same state │ ├─ 3. Insufficient or incorrect information on the envelope │ └─ 4. Less often: wrong precinct within the right jurisdiction · already voted · │ signature did not match the registration record │ └─ ✱ THE STRUCTURAL POINT OF PART G, AND THE SHARPEST THING ON THIS PAGE: READ REASON 1 AGAINST TRIGGER 1. The provisional ballot exists to serve the voter whose name is not on the list. About half of all provisional rejections are because the voter's name was not on the list. For that half, the process did not resolve the question — it DEFERRED the question for a week and then answered it the same way the poll book did, having moved the burden of proof onto the voter in the interval. ✱ The second-largest reason is the Part E problem by another name: registered, eligible, wrong jurisdiction. ■ PART H — THE STATES WITH NO PROVISIONAL BALLOT AT ALL, AND WHY THEY ARE NOT CHEATING │ ├─◆ WHO THEY ARE — AND THE SOURCES DO NOT AGREE │ ├─ ▸ One national compilation: Idaho · Minnesota · New Hampshire [as of Nov 2025] │ ├─ ▸ The federal survey's own data note: Idaho · Maine · Minnesota · North Dakota │ │ did not report the provisional field "because they do not use provisional ballots" │ └─ ◎ ✱ THE DISAGREEMENT IS NOT A SLOPPY FOOTNOTE, IT IS THE SUBJECT. "Does your state │ use provisional ballots" has no federal definition, so a state with a differently │ named fail-safe — a challenged ballot, an affidavit ballot — can appear in one │ column in one table and another column in another. It is recorded here unresolved. │ ├─◆ WHY THEY CAN LAWFULLY HAVE NONE │ ├─ The usual explanation is Election Day registration: where a voter can register at │ │ the polling place and then vote a regular ballot, Trigger 1 is resolved on the spot │ │ and the provisional envelope has no occasion to issue. North Dakota has no voter │ │ registration at all, so the trigger condition cannot arise. │ └─ ⚠ NO EXPRESS EXEMPTION FOR THESE STATES APPEARS IN THE TEXT OF § 21082, AND NONE WAS │ FOUND ELSEWHERE IN THE SUBCHAPTER. What the subchapter does say is that "the │ specific choices on the methods of complying" are "left to the discretion of the │ State" [§ 21085] and that its requirements are minimums a state may exceed │ [§ 21084]. Secondary sources describe an exemption; the statutory hook for one is │ [unconfirmed] and is not asserted here. │ └─◆ ⚑ NEW HAMPSHIRE IS THE LIVE TEST OF THAT DESIGN, THIS MONTH ├─ A state with no provisional ballot has no cushion: the registration desk IS the │ fail-safe, so a rule that hardens the desk has nowhere to spill into. ├─ On 28 May 2026 a federal judge struck down the state's 2024 proof-of-citizenship │ registration law as unconstitutional, finding that the state's election-integrity │ interest did not justify the burden shown at trial, that noncitizen voting there is │ vanishingly rare, and that the sworn affidavit the law removed had been the only │ available proof for a substantial number of voters. The Qualified Voter Affidavit is │ available again for CITIZENSHIP; it was not restored for proving RESIDENCY. └─ The state appealed on 25 June 2026 and sought a stay. ⚠ The outcome of that appeal as of 22 October 2026 is [unconfirmed] here. ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ✱ THE SHAPE OF THE WHOLE THING ║ ║ ║ ║ Federal law does one thing well and stops: it guarantees that nobody eligible is ║ ║ turned away empty-handed, and it makes that guarantee suable. Then it hands the ║ ║ envelope to the states and asks only that the answer be FILED somewhere a ║ ║ determined voter could find it. ║ ║ ║ ║ So the three questions that decide whether the vote exists are all state questions: ║ ║ ▸ How long do I have to fix it? — hours in some states, two weeks in others ║ ║ ▸ Does the wrong room void everything? — yes in 26 states, partly in 20 ║ ║ ▸ Will anyone tell me it failed? — a handful of states; mostly no ║ ║ ║ ║ And the quietest finding is in the numbers: the most common reason a provisional ║ ║ ballot is rejected is the same condition that caused it to be issued. ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ``` ## Notes **What this map is a time-slice of.** The statutory floor — 52 U.S.C. § 21082 and the 2004 construction of it — is stable and has not been amended in any respect relevant here. Everything in Parts C, E, F and H is state law and moves. The state deadlines in Part C and the Part E state counts are a selection, not the fifty-state table: they are drawn from national compilations current to late 2025 and from state guidance issued in 2026, and they are presented to show the **range and the shape** of the variation rather than to serve as a lookup for any one state. A voter should check their own state and county. **The case.** [[Sandusky County Democratic Party v. Blackwell]], Nos. 04-4265, 04-4266 (6th Cir., 26 October 2004), per curiam, is the load-bearing authority for three separate things on this page: that HAVA § 302(a) creates an individual right enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; that HAVA nonetheless requires no ballot to be counted; and that "jurisdiction" in the affirmation means the precinct rather than the county. Only the third of those was framed by the court as non-essential to its result. The case is from one circuit, and its reasoning rested in part on a single senator's floor statement — but no contrary federal holding has displaced it, and it is the reason the wrong-precinct question in Part E is a state question at all. **Figures and who produced them.** The 2024 volumes in Part G are the MIT Election Data and Science Lab's presentation of federal survey data — approximately 1,736,209 provisional ballots issued, about 1,281,399 counted at least in part, about 436,258 rejected — together with its ranking of rejection reasons, in which "not on the state's voter list" accounts for roughly half and had fallen slightly from 2020. The ~25% rejection rate is **not** a figure any source reports; it is arithmetic performed here on those two published counts, which is why it carries `◈`. The underlying federal collection is the [[Election Assistance Commission]]'s biennial survey of election administration, and the agency's own 2024 comprehensive report also contains a provisional-voting section; the section could not be read directly for this page, so the national figures are attributed to the Lab that published them rather than to the agency. **Two sources, one unresolved conflict.** The set of states that do not use provisional ballots is reported differently by the two best sources available. A national legal compilation current to November 2025 gives Idaho, Minnesota and New Hampshire; the federal survey's own 2024 data note instead names Idaho, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota as having not reported the provisional field "because they do not use provisional ballots" — while the same compilation says Maine is the one state that counts a wrong-precinct provisional ballot **in full.** Those cannot both be describing the same thing. Rather than pick one, Part H records the disagreement and names the likely cause: there is no federal definition of the term, so a state fail-safe under a different name is classified inconsistently. This is flagged because it is the kind of discrepancy that quietly corrupts a fifty-state table built by stacking sources. **What is deliberately not asserted here.** - **No statutory exemption for the Election Day registration states.** It is widely described, and it is not in the text of the subchapter as far as this page could establish. Part H says so and marks it `[unconfirmed]`. - **No current fifty-state count of the cure deadlines.** Several states publish none, and the compilations are explicit that they give no deadline for Alaska, California, Delaware, Maryland or Pennsylvania among others. - **No resolution of the New Hampshire appeal.** The ruling and the notice of appeal are both documented; the result is not, and no search finding is not a finding. - **No officeholder is named anywhere on this page**, inside the fence or out. Every node is a statute, a clock, a state or a number, so the map does not go stale when a seat turns over. **Why the late count is politically loud.** Part B, Step 3 is the mechanical reason provisional ballots are disproportionately present in the post-election-night shift in reported margins: they are segregated by design, so they are counted after the unofficial totals have already been published and discussed. See [[Blue Shift]] for the pattern and [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] for why the first numbers out of the room are the ones everyone remembers. **Where this sits among the election maps.** [[Provisional Ballot]] defines the term. This map is the machinery: additive to that page, not a replacement for it. Upstream are [[How a Voter Is Removed From the Rolls]] (which is how Trigger 1 is manufactured) and [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]]. Downstream are [[State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk]] (the clock the Part D determination is squeezed inside), [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]], [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] and [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]]. **Sources.** The statutory text is 52 U.S.C. § 21082 with §§ 21084 and 21085. The 2026 state-rule changes in Parts C, E and F are from the Voting Rights Lab's *2026 Battleground Report*, published 28 September 2026, which covers seven battleground states only. The Pennsylvania mechanics and clocks are from that state's Department of State provisional-voting guidance, version 2.4, issued 18 September 2026. The cure deadlines and notification practices are from Ballotpedia's state-by-state compilation, current to November 2025. The 2024 volumes are from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. The New Hampshire ruling is reported by New Hampshire Public Radio and the *New Hampshire Bulletin*. ## See also - [[Provisional Ballot]] · [[Help America Vote Act]] · [[Sandusky County Democratic Party v. Blackwell]] · [[Same-Day Voter Registration]] - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] · [[How a Voter Is Removed From the Rolls]] · [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]] · [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] - [[State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk]] · [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] · [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] · [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] - [[State Election Administration Tree]] · [[Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk]] · [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] · [[Blue Shift]] - [[Election Assistance Commission]] · [[National Voter Registration Act]] · [[Voter Suppression]] · [[Election Certification]] - [[Foundations Hub]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]]