It seems to me the answer is Yes.
It seems to me that provisional ballots are only issued when there's a problem voting a regular ballot. In manufacturing, we used to call those defects, and would work to drive the number of them to zero defects.
How can one claim "most secure election ever" and still have significant amounts of provisional ballots cast?
Interestingly, the 2020 EAVS Report from the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) points out that rejected ballots percentage decreased from 2016 to 2020 (to 0.8%) while mail in ballots nearly doubled due to the pandemic. My state (OK) was listed in the top 5 states that rejected provisional ballots. I'm not sure if that's bad or good.
The EAVS report To Congress has no total count of the Provisional ballots in the 2020 election. This despite HAVA requiring provisional ballots? I wonder if that is because EAC didn't ask. There is a short section on pages 77-79 in the report about provisional ballots, but it focuses on percentages and reasons for provisional ballots, not the total number of them.
I agree. Provisional Ballots seem to be a kind of "get out of jail free" card. First they find people who probably will not vote. Then they complete some ballots for their chosen candidate using the names of those unlikely voters.
If they get caught out they issue a get out of jail free card and the problem goes away. So the number of get out of jail free cards should indicate the magnitude of the problem.
Totally in agreement with yours and OP's statement. Both of you said it well.
I am tempted to do another "thouht" post about Provisional Ballots. What d you think about this?
Provisional Ballots Could Be A Remedy For Error+Fraud...
In the case of a provisional ballot, which is counted? The originally cast ballot of unknown source, or the in-person "provisional' ballot cast by the physical voter?
I'm told the provisional ballot takes precedence.
Or, most likely, the one for [D] takes precedence.