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[...] 97 percent of rejected signatures are likely to be authentic—or, for every invalid ballot, 32 valid ones are thrown out.
Even in normal election cycles, signature-matching requirements result in many ballots being rejected. Hundreds of thousands of such ballots were disqualified this way in 2016—almost all, presumably, cast by voters who had done everything right. Rejections disproportionately hit certain demographic groups, including elderly voters, young voters, and voters of color, that are expected to heavily favor Vice President Joe Biden this fall. As voting by mail surges across the country, many elections, including the presidential race, could hinge on a process that one expert recently described to me as "witchcraft."
[...] How that is done, like the rest of the American election system, varies wildly from state to state and even from county to county. Some jurisdictions use the signature on a voter-registration form or a ballot request or a driver's license. A software program might make the first cut, or humans might conduct the whole process. Examiners might have a single autograph with which to compare, or dozens.
"When you pay attention to this stuff, you start realizing how important things like the signature pad at the DMV is for election administration," Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford University, says. "Absentee voting is not what you think of when you're 16 and getting your first license."
The training and rules for officials are all over the place too. Florida law says that ballots can be rejected because of a mismatch, but a 2019 lawsuit filed by Democrats complained that the state offered no training or procedures for officials assessing signatures, "resulting in processes that are demonstrably standardless, inconsistent, and unreliable." Under a new law, the state must offer standardized training, and a two-hour training video is posted online. You can also watch an Oregon training session on YouTube. Colorado, which conducts its elections via mail, posts its signature-verification guide online.
Your mileage may vary, but these materials didn't give me a great deal of confidence in the system. It's not that election officials aren't trying—the presentations are earnest and straightforward—but they offer fairly minimal training to the people who will decide whether someone's vote for president gets to count. Professional forensic document examiners are typically trained for two to three years, but even the most robust training systems for election officials are more like eight hours. Some of the judgment calls depicted in the materials are obvious mismatches, but others are much fuzzier.'
https://www.theatlan...ections/616790/
For Pennsylvania, those of us who registered to vote by mail online will apparently have our signatures matched against the one on file at the DMV (at the time we first registered? most recently registered? is it the same as the one on our current license? I emailed two different addresses from the PA voting site, hopefully I'll get an answer...). From what I remember I either did the DMV signature on a paperback book in my lap or using an electronic pen that didn't write normally. Either way, the signature on my driver's license, despite mostly being an illegible scribble, differs noticeably from my usual illegible scribble, and after 15 minutes of practicing, I'm having a hard time reproducing it in a way that doesn't seem suspiciously deliberate.
I'm thinking I should just vote in person. I'm probably not high risk, especially with my P100 mask. I'll wear my bulletproof hoodie and bring a rifle-proof plate in my backpack.
But I didn't realize until today that anyone who requested a mail-in ballot who wants to vote in person will have to either bring that mail-in ballot (and security envelope) to be voided or do a provisional ballot instead (which may take longer, and so not be counted on election day...). Many people are probably going to go to the polls not realizing they were supposed to bring their absentee ballot... and even if they do, voiding the ballot is going to take more time. Overall, I'd expect much longer wait times on election day.
I wish I were rich enough to supply poll workers with gas masks, body armor, and large bulletproof shields. (The new knights?...) Though if I got one of those shields to walk around Philadelphia someone might rob me for it....
[Edit: perhaps worth mentioning that Cursive is the only class I ever got a D in. And I stopped taking it when I was 9 iirc.]
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 21 October 2020 - 10:22 PM
