What is the point of provisional ballots anyway? If you're not registered to vote, you're not registered to vote. The dems shouldn't be allowed to go out and round up unregistered people to vote for them so that they can whine and sue for months after an election when the votes shouldn't have been cast at all.
Because government agencies have been known to make mistakes, and individuals should have a chance to make a case whether or not that's so in their instance.
The point of a provisional ballot in reality is to prevent a major scene at the polling place.
You shut them up and make them leave rather than fight.
I voted via provisional ballot this year. This was because I was listed on the voter rolls as a "permanent absentee voter", but had changed residences and the registrar of voters did not have my new address, and I had neglected to update my address for them, or "re-register" to vote anew at my new address. Of course, I had forgotten that I had ever signed up to be a permanent absentee voter, or that I hadn't voted since being at my new address, so I figured everything was kosher :-) (Since I knew I *was* registered and had been told that if I had continuously voted in prior elections, no need to re-register...)
The problem was that, I imagine, an absentee ballot was sent to my old address. Thus, when I arrived at my polling place, they had my name listed but it said they'd sent me a ballot. If they let me vote normally this risks letting me vote twice (since for all they know I might have sent in the absentee ballot; indeed they should assume as much). Thus, I was given a provisional ballot which would be counted once it was made certain that I hadn't voted absentee. Now, if the resident at my old address stole my ballot and voted with it, then that's a different problem. :-) But assuming that didn't happen, then my vote was perfectly valid and there was a perfectly good reason for them to give me a provisional ballot instead of a regular one. (Or let me use the electronic voting machine, in my precinct's case.)
If so many provisional ballots were rejected in Florida, that says to me two things, one depressing, one encouraging:
1. A lot of people were trying to vote who should not have been. (Double-residences, already-voted, felon, whatever...)
2. Florida was pretty good at catching the unlawful ballots and doing the right thing by not counting them.
All in all, sounds ok to me.