Election 2018: What do you do if you’re told you can’t vote in Georgia?

One way to ensure your vote counts in Georgia’s midterm election is to vote this week, before advance in-person voting ends Friday.

If you have any problems, you’ll have more time to resolve them.

Most voters don’t have any.

Since early voting began Oct. 15, thousands in Columbus have cast ballots in a record turnout for a midterm election, said Nancy Boren, executive director of the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations.

As of this week, about 25,000 Columbus residents had cast ballots at the early voting poll in the City Service Center, 3111 Citizens Way, where advance voting ends at 7 p.m. Friday.

After that, anyone who has not voted must wait until Election Day, when polls across Georgia open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

With all the allegations of voter suppression in the news, residents may wonder: What can they do if they get to the polls and are told they can’t vote?

Typically they would be told that for one of these reasons:

▪ Their names aren’t on the voter rolls.

▪ They don’t have the required government-issued photo identification.

▪ They are convicted felons still under the court’s jurisdiction. Only felons who have satisfied their sentences may vote.

▪ They are registered in another county.

If they are felons still serving a sentence or residents of another county, then by law they can’t vote here.

A resident of Bartow County, Ga., on his way to Florida discovered the latter restriction when he decided to stop in Columbus to vote, Boren said: By law he could not do that.

If residents lack the proper ID or don’t show up on the voter rolls, they are not allowed to vote on the touch-screen machines, but they still can file “provisional” ballots, hand-marked hard-copy ballots set aside for later consideration, and counted if the discrepancies can be resolved within three days.

A voter who lacked proper identification must provide the required information to the county elections office to get the ballot counted. If the voter was not listed among those registered, the elections office must investigate to determine why, and decide whether the person was eligible.

Boren said voters rarely come to the polls without the required identification, as evidenced by this election’s early voting: “We’ve voted 25,000 so far, and no one has not had one of the authorized forms of ID.”

If a voter is in the county of registration, but goes to the wrong precinct on Election Day and hasn’t time to travel to the correct voting poll, the individual may file a provisional ballot, and if that ballot includes races for districts the voter doesn’t live in, the elections board will count only the votes in contests for which the resident was eligible.

In Columbus, the five-member county board of elections will meet Nov. 13 to inspect provisional ballots and decide which will be counted. Voters whose identification was missing will have until 5 p.m. Nov. 9 to provide that information to the elections office, Boren said.

The Muscogee County elections office is on the second floor of the City Service Center, off Macon Road by the Columbus Public Library. The telephone number is 706-653-4392.

The elections board will not meet on Monday, Nov. 12, because the government will be closed for Veterans Day, Boren said.

At its meeting the board will certify all the election results, establishing the official tallies it reports to the state. Until then, all vote totals are labeled “unofficial.”

Pending registrations

This year headlines have highlighted the 53,000 Georgia voter registrations held in “pending” status because of discrepancies or missing information. About 3,650 of those are from Muscogee County.

That does not mean those residents can’t vote. If they have proper identification that substantially matches their registration information, they will be allowed to vote on the touch-screen machines like everyone else.

They have to file provisional ballots only if election workers can’t reconcile discrepancies in their identification and registration information.

Those who file provisional ballots are notified in writing if their ballots are rejected or if only some of their votes are counted because they went to the wrong precinct.

Residents can check their registration status online at the Georgia Secretary of State’s “My Voter Page,” www.mvp.sos.ga.gov, where they type in the initial of their first name, then their last name, county and date of birth. The website tells them where to vote on Election Day and offers a sample ballot.

Georgia voters are required to show a government-issued photo ID card, such as a driver’s license, a state identification card residents can get at driver’s license bureaus, a U.S. passport, a military or other government employee ID, or a tribal identification card.

The law has one exception: Those who by mail registered to vote for the first time may show other documentation to establish their residency, including a current utility bill, a bank statement, or a government paycheck or other government document showing the individual’s name and address.

The first thing voters are asked to do at the polls is fill out a certificate with their names and addresses, and hand those to poll workers along with their IDs. The poll workers then confirm the residents are registered for the home address provided, and give them an access card to plug into the voting machine. The card calls up the proper ballot on the touch-screen.

If the names and addresses on identifications don’t match those on the voter rolls, but the voters are properly registered and have the required IDs, election workers will ask them to fill out a form correcting the discrepancy, and the voters will be allowed to vote on the touchscreen machines.

Occasionally election workers get complaints that voters got the wrong ballots. If voters notice this or any other problem with a touch-screen ballot, they should notify an election worker immediately. If they don’t, and instead keep voting and tap the screen’s “cast ballot” icon, the ballot cannot be retrieved to resolve any issues.

At 7 p.m. on Election Day, anyone who is in line to vote is allowed to, but the line ends then. No one else may join it, and the end of the line will be guarded.

But that may not be the end of the election.

A candidate must get more than 50 percent to win. In tight races with three candidates or more – such as the governor’s race – a runoff is possible.

A runoff would be Dec. 4.

This story was originally published November 1, 2018 at 3:02 PM.