“We don’t need untrained people making judgments about something they know nothing about,” he said."
And yet , Trump got elected , sort of , to be POTUS. As in his statement "I know more than the generals" about running the military & the Iraq war.
America , you are better than the Trump-Kushner crime family and their abettors ………. aren`t you ?
1
We try to eliminate votes rather than encourage voters to participate. This exact match and emphasis on signature being identical under all circumstances is ridiculous. The GOP wants a smaller voting population and they have been wildly successful.
1
My signature was crystal-clear 20 years ago but all of those years I've been on computers instead of paper. Now, I have difficulty matching my signature to what it was in 1998.
What if I was eighty years old, how would it match something fro 40 years earlier? What of 20 somethings who barely do cursive anymore?
There has to be a better verification tool than this idiotic standard. But then again, voter suppression is the name of the GOP game.
1
For God's sake, what idiocy. For the very simple reason that an electronic pad signature can be hacked and stolen without you ever knowing about it, I ALWAYS use a different form than my usual signature for legal purposes. So I guess if I were a registered Florida voter, I would be out of luck. To Hell with technology!
I’d wager the vast number of ‘non matching’ signatures were non Republican voters.
2
You have to give the Republican Party credit: When they realized that the popular vote would almost always go against them, they perfected ways to limit voting, suppress voting, deny voting - whatever it takes.
The fewer the voters, the easier to allow to vote those who favor their agenda. Along with gerrymandering, it's amazing that our democracy is hanging on by a thread.
3
Sloppy signatures or forgery(s)?
1
I'm dyslexic. Really glad I don't live in FL.
I used to live in NY and had a bank that compared signatures. I was always having to stop by the bank and verify my identity.
1
Of course the Dems are saying this is racist behavior on the part of Repubs...but the public deserves accurate counts
Why not just take voters at their word, that they are who they say they are? That is what happens when I go to vote here in England. They tick off my name, no ID required, no signature. The number of cases in the USA of actual voter impersonation has been shown to be trivially small. Think about it: why would anyone bother to go vote pretending to be someone else? Why commit a crime that incurs absolutely no personal gain?
2
If someone compared my signature of today with that of 10 years ago, they wouldn’t be able to match the two together either. And neither of those would match that of 10 years prior.
Are voting clerks now expected to be handwriting experts? This is getting to be ridiculous - and dangerous to our voting process. And Florida again?! Another little twist in disenfranchise tactics by certain unnamed (those who shall not be named) parties.
1
I'm one of thousands doing manual recounts the next few days. Wish us luck as we sort this out. We know you're watching. And we know we're the practice punching bag for 2020. But no matter who tweets at us, we have a simple goal. Every vote, every voice, matters. We will make sure they are heard.
4
If we really stop teaching cursive handwriting in the USA, how will we be able to tell one "X" from another? It really seems like an excuse to change the election results and suppress minority voters.
When will we get this right? Marginalizing the poorer voters for the 1% to have their way...and then if that doesn't work we always have Gerrymandering to mess with the results.
When we peons vote, every possible discrepancy is scrutinized and used as a pretext to deny us the franchise.
However, when real estate moguls (like the infamous Donald) submit financial documents that suggest that he has been stealing from the government and the people since he was in diapers, the IRS and the FBI and all organs of government are mute.
1
My signature signed on the electronic pad at my precinct sure doesn't look much like my legible signature on paper. Yet it was accepted. I had no trouble voting in person.
It seems to me a very valid case can be made that there is not equal protection under the law for voting, if e.g. you are sick and unable to vote in person you may very well than not have your vote count. Or if you are serving our country overseas in the military.
And every year it seems we hear the same old tired confabulations about "massive voter fraud" mainly in Democratic leaning precincts. It plays very well to the base. As does stopping the count if a Republican is ahead.
1
I don't know how many times I have signed documents and my signature as varied. I don't have a signature rubber stamp and so each time I sign a document the signature can look a little different. People often scribble a signature in a hurry when signing, depending upon the nature of the documents being signed. Picture IDs should be an effective way to verify that the person at the polling station is who she claims to be in the poll book. If voting absentee, signing the ballot documents could be a problem, especially if it has been several years since a voter registered to vote and signed an application. There are bound to be variances in signatures.
1
I agree, but note that the Democrats are also adamantly against requiring photo ID. Comparing signatures is an alternative to photo ID and I have experienced that method too (in New Jersey).
Saying that “my signature is never EXACTLY THE SAME twice in a row” is a red herring, as that’s not the standard. I think most people can see if there is enough of a resemblance to validate identity. I wonder if the Democrats in reality just want absolutely no verification of identity prior to voting. Seems that way to me.
1
The way these sorts of scams work is they only apply it to people they don't like.
With voting the 'rule' will be vigorously applied to voters from precincts that generally vote opposite to the 'desired' outcome.
In the end the close inspection will be only to the signature records of people who's ballots were rejected. If a sampling was taken from a 'desired' precinct it would reveal just as much variation, but few if any rejected ballots.
In these sorts of scams some thought as gone into the backlash. You have to make sure you're not just looking at what the scammers want you to look at.
2
In 70 years, no two of my signatures were ever the same.
1
@Sad former GOP fan, we should all go back to signing using an X simply for consistency and therefore security. The harder we think the dumber we seem to act, why fight it then.
Why do I fear that the overwhelming majority of the "sloppy signatures" will be from poor people, who typically vote Democratic.
Our oligarchical republic is less and less about Democracy and caring for each other. It is more and more the depotism of the few [the rich and the corporations] over the many.
3
My signature tends to change slightly each time I write it. It's called human error. We are not robots or rubber stamps. We cannot produce the exact same signature every time. Signatures also evolve as we get older. It doesn't stay the same.
At my very first voting experience, I had to sign a second time because the election official thought my signature didn't match my name. My first name is Erin. Using script, that's an E with a lot of short bumps after it. After signing things hundreds of times, the short bumps got flatter. But this is my signature. After arguing with him, I signed it in "proper" script just to be able to vote. It wasn't my signature, but to be able to perform my civic duty, I had to fake it.
1
Are you kidding? Since when does anyone sign a touch screen the same way they sign with pen and paper? You might as well compare signatures written with your toes!
2
I recently bought a house in another state. The real estate and title agencies and the lending bank all had me "sign" all the necessary documents by clicking on the spaces indicated by email. The transactions were valid and the sale went through. At what point does it become obvious to any judge that Florida is deliberately making it hard for people to vote with their antiquated notions? This is outrageous.
1
When I went to vote last year in West Palm Beach, the clerk said my signature didn't match even though she had my driver's license, was looking right at it and me! Imagine if you do a mail-in ballot and someone just decides the signature looks a bit different. It's pretty messed up here.
17
Using an electronic pad, I have never been able to sign my name in a way that in the least resembles the signature on my checks and when I sign to vote at my local precinct. I think my wife's signature is more stable, but I would hate to have my identity verified by the way my signature looks on an electronic pad.
3
Thinking back to my youth in small-town Mass. Voting was sacred, like going to church. My parents got dressed up and drove to the h.s. gymnasium to vote behind a portable table with a curtain. The town clerk and various town volunteers were in charge of ballots and hand-typed lists. Afterward, they'd bump into a neighbor or friend and end up going for a cup of coffee. I wonder if there was a dispute from one end of the decade to the next. Today, voting is stream-lined, profitable (I'm guessing some private entity makes a buck), impersonal, corporate, electronic, dubious. We've given up our power.
1
I was management for a research project in the 1980's which developed a pen with sensors that dynamically followed the writing of a signature. At that time only adults with script signatures were considered. It turned out that the form of the signature depended on the position of the signature pad and many other things. Since then I have watched signature evolving to from a carefully written name to a squiggle with a stylus that is often placed in an uncomfortable position. Today even the credit card people are trying to eliminate signatures as identity confirmation.
We had findings like the observation signatures evolved over time with an individual. When a woman changed her name in marriage, it took about six months for the signature to settle down.
The writing of a signature to be allowed to vote, for a passport, or a driver's license is often done in a poor environment that affects the form of the signature.
In our research program, there was a clear compromise between accepting a valid signature or rejecting a false one at about the 1% level, even with a system that tracked the evolution of a signature over time.
The signature as it has evolved since our research has made it basically useless for reliable identification.
It still may be useful to eliminate "unwanted" votes in an election.
We need to engage a technical expert on signatures in any real contest over its use. I might be able to dig one up.
2
The Republicans demanded "picture IDs" and then are relying on signatures that require hand writing experts to judge correctly. Technology may have a solution:
1- The picture ID itself is subject to "facial recognition" and can be used at any precinct with a camera on a PC to see if the person in the picture matches the person in front of them. If there is doubt, any other state acceptable "valid" picture ID can be tried.
2- For mail in ballots, another solution is needed: The person voting takes a clear "selfie" with the ballot and picture ID in the picture, and sends it to a state e-mail address on the ballot (unique for each mail in ballot). The selfie phone is then called and the voter is given a unique code to put in the signature box. The same software has matched the image in the email to the one on record (probably sdriver's license needed for this, or image recorded in person at an earlier date).
Selfies are so common, this is no burden. In cases where photo ID is not used for in person voting and a question arises (a challenge), This second method will work also.
2
Based on some of the metrics shared here with regard to disqualifications, I can better understand the utter hysteria on the right...
So, in rejecting ballots because the signatures don't match (how exact does the match have to be?), election officials are actually assuming these people are attempting to commit fraud, that they are not the people they say they are when they are voting. Where is the "innocent until proven guilty" here?
6
Are professional handwriting experts doing the analyzing?
If not, it is an underhanded way to eliminate votes.
I am 58 years old and my signature has never been "consistent."
6
This is why I only vote by mail if their is no other way. With early voting you have a section of times and places. You present your photo ID and sign in to get your ballot. You fill in the ovals , then put it through yourself into the tally machine (an optical scanner) and verify it was counted. In Orange County Fl if there is an over count or under count it is kicked out and you have the opportunity to correct it. The ballot is saved and can be hand or machine recounted. Yes this is in Flor-Duh.
3
SCOUNDRELS! I now suspect why I have not received the costomary email confirmation of the receipt of my ballot. The powers to be are mstill checking out my signature on the mailing envelope.
Buried deep in the article, as is the wont of The Times, are some interesting facts.
More than 2 million Floridians cast ballots my mail. Depending upon which aggrieved party is to be believed, either 5,000 or 20,000 ballots were rejected. According to the article, an unidentified number of those rejections were due to signature irregularities.
For those who learned some 'rithmatick back in the day before digitization, apparently at least 2 million Floridians can still sign their names in a legible manner. There must be an app on smart phones that can calculate the percentage of Floridians who have some modicum of literacy - at least enough for voter identification. Let's take a SWIG and go for >99%.
For those who learned some readin' back in the day before video games, it would appear that those Floridians who have trouble grasping the concept of a pen don't vote for Republicans. Or, maybe The Times couldn't find any Republicans to complain about the unfairness of the rule of election laws in Florida.
It would appear the future of the Democratic Party is counting on a-literates and ex-felons as their base.
Sweet.
2
@Albert Edmud
I'm not following your logic. The concept of the pen is not at issue. It is the fluidity of signatures when written with pens on paper, fingers on touch screens, and pens on touch screens, by people who are in a rush or not, by people who no longer are taught how to write cursive but type with their thumbs instead, by young people experimenting with signatures, etc. Logically, people of all parties are affected, but young people are more affected, and in some places they tend to vote Democratic. I can't believe cursive is not taught anymore, but having an unstable signature does not make you "a-literate" or an ex-felon.
3
One word: fingerprints.
Nonsense. Signatures change every single time, and most certainly over the years. I've got Parkinson's and I even had to contact my bank to see if they'd still honor my checks. Even before the PD, my signature changed dramatically over the years.
1
The signature as requirement needs to go. NOBODY signs their name EXACTLY the same every time. Exact matches are actually useful in detecting fraud since it is so unrealistic for a human to control their muscle movement with such precision. Even standing up when signing changes the angle of the hand and tilt of letters.
It’s infuriating to see this criteria used by some to deny people their vote. Far too subjective a measure to be used by those with an agenda to alter election outcomes.
4
Does Donald Trump really sign his name the way it is signed on his official documents?
And no one questions it?
And Florida has the nerve to question some people's signature on their driver's license?
If that's the case, perhaps they should only hire handwriting experts to be election judges.
Heaven help us because of penmanship not being taught in school like it once was, (we had to start it in third grade when I was in school years ago) so the places where it is still expected is going to find future generations actually printing their names.
2
Are you kidding? They are expecting people's signatures to match a previous digital signature made on one of those teeny little screens with the big fat pens on a wire ?! Try being a left-hander of the "writing upside down" variety and see if you can make a decent signature on the tiny screen. Not. And I am from the generation when they taught people how to write cursive.
5
I work at a retail job. Almost nobody signs the signature pad with their official signature. We get lines, scribbles, kittens & such. Those signatures withdraw money out of their accounts. As salespeople, we don’t double check with their license and I know the bank doesn’t either. Young people don’t count the signature as anything serious. I watch. Some older people still sign it seriously. Why does it not matter with your money, but it does at the polls? Times are changing. Get up to speed. Seems very unlawful to me. Also seems unlawful to just be able to use a credit card nowadays without a pin or requiring checking IDs & signatures.
As a salesperson I don’t know if that card is really theirs. Now you don’t even have to sign on most of them. Don’t lose your card or get the numbers stolen.
The U.S is falling behind. Not good.
2
This voting thing in Florida cracks me up. It appears that every two years calls for a Lawyer Reinvestment Act where trained ParaTroopLawyers are trotted out to be flown over Florida and dropped behind the lines as it were, to hold the bridges so the flow of their fellow travelers can drive, bus, fly, or walk, or even train to hot spots. I'm sure they are met with flowers, kisses and cheers by Floridians by the thousands who then know they will be saved from themselves.
Seriously, why can't this fairly rich state invest in equipment and training to do the counting more expeditiously and even more accurately. It will save us non Floridians from feeling like we are bad for not caring.
This is a sham effort directed at disenfranchising voters. Nothing else. The assumption with a signature is that the signer (even if using an X - for those who are illiterate) is willingly agreeing to the terms of the document signed - and nothing more.
As far as following certain rules of "penmanship" - signing a document is not the equivalent of taking a test to qualify as a competent driver. That's absurd. A test is, by definition, a threshold - not a continuous, ongoing event.
I always assumed that if you made your signature look less like a product of a parochial school education - it was harder for someone to forge it. The scrawl was good - not bad. It was an expression of individuality and the exact opposite of deception. If you go to http://www.financetwitter.com/2014/06/fifty-cool-signatures-of-worlds-rich-famous-people.html you can see that people with the credentials of Barack Obama, Neil Armstrong, J K Rowling, and... Donald Trump have signatures that are completely unintelligible in terms of spelling out their names.
If this is the type of nonsense that the GOP has to resort to win on behalf of their plutocrat donors - the American experiment in democracy is well on its way to a waste bin filled with "unacceptable voter signatures".
1
About a year ago, I had a "proximal row carpectomy" on my right hand. For a dominant right-handed person, as I am, it was a nightmare. I needed help to do everything. My writing has changed dramatically both before and after. Right before the surgery I was practically printing my name, for three months I did nothing with my right hand and now I am back to writing. It is a sad state of affairs that we are in and I believe that it will only get worse.
1
Signatures change over time and with circumstances. It is ridiculous to compare a signature to one written on a screen with a stylus; it will never match a signature with pen and paper. I am left handed and some screens are not adjustable to accommodate me. Writing in a situation designed for a right handed world leads to significant distortions. Also, most schools don't teach cursive writing any more--a ridiculous decision--. so younger voters have not learned to write their names. Clearly, it is time to find a new way to verify voters.
1
I hope there's a deep investigation on this. I really want to know whether the system has an adverse impact on minorities, or whether someone just stupidly thought that you could match electronic pad signatures with inked signatures (resulting in voters of any and all stripes are getting kicked out.)
Is it a conspiracy, or some manager believing the vendors when they said "of course you can match these signatures because [bogus but convincing technical language]" I bet hundreds of low-level hands-on staff in the DMV and in the elections offices are saying "we told you so"
This is, with all due respect, not disenfranchisement. This is the law, and probably an inadequate one at that. One could examine the voting records in Chicago or Albany (both Democratic strongholds, of course) for case studies on how to vote fraudulently. As the judicial branch has consistently ruled against the need to provide a valid ID in order to vote, what are we left with to ensure legal voting? I suppose we could simply revert to people making their most sincere face and saying "I really am who I say I am."
2
@John H: Why not just take them at their word, that they are who they say they are? That is what happens when I go to vote here in England. No ID, no signature. The number of cases in the USA of actual voter impersonation has been shown to be trivially small. Think about it: why would anyone bother to go vote pretending to be someone else? Why commit a crime that incurs absolutely no gain?
1
No surprise here, save for the depth of the duplicity of Republicans. Of course there is voter fraud, but it is committed primarily by Republicans who would suppress the vote (especially in Democratic precincts) by any means necessary to seize victory, no matter how shady.
So, once again, good reporting - thank you - but what are we as a country going to do about it? Really, this story is more "the week in review"; most people who aren't voluntarily blind to the problem understand it. Now, where are the solutions? Where is genuine fairness? When I am required to scrawl something that passes for a signature on an electronic pad for a purchase, will I have invalidated my future voting rights? Florida may be the ongoing worst-case scenario, but many other states are not far behind. Report on the solutions to these problems, please. That would be the real news.
2
Twenty years ago my software team at IBM developed a Neural Network (AI) based application SIGCHECK which compared signatures for banking applications. No human was able to outperform SIGCHECK in blind tests. Multiple signatures of users on banking forms were available. 500 000 signatures from banks in USA, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Jordania etc.
Some findings:
- people are really bad in reproducing their dignature consistently. About 10% of the population are not able to reproduce a signature at all.
- people are really bad in checking signatures which are provided on different media with different pens, signing at a table or standing at a counter.
- there are big ethnic differences in signature style e.g. Northern Europe (rather simple) or Southern European (bragging - much like the signature of Donald Trump ).
- complex signatures can be faked more easily than simple signatures. My favorite example was the signature of a drug administrator, which was asinoke curved line. Novody was able to produce a fake signarue which was accepted by SIGCHECK. Humans could not see any difference.
Summary: Comparing signatures is no reliable method to verify the identity of a person.
4
I will never vote by mail in Florida again. I, too, wanted a chance to research all the amendments on the ballot. I could easily have early voted in person at my local library. It would be nice if we could have an election system in this country that is fair and honest. I can see why people don't bother to vote. Shameful.
4
The GOP no longer has to pretend to be fair and open-minded. They lost that sector of the nation years ago. So now all they have to do is appeal to their deplorable base and hope they have enough numbers to avoid impeachment? Who knows what goes through their warped minds. It certainly isn't patriotism, or respect for the Constitution. This is exhibit A on that point.
3
Florida has a lot of elderly people whose signatures could be changing because of vision problems. My mother, who has macular degeneration and lives in San Francisco, voted last year with an absentee ballot. Her vote, we found out, was not counted because her signature did not match the signature on file. Her current signature is indeed "sloppy" but it's hers now. How can this political problem of matching signatures for voting be corrected when it could be due to problems of vision changes, Parkinson's disease, or other physical problems?
3
I disagree with Patrick Murphy. Low-tech is the safest technology for voting. That said, signature identification is a pretty poor method for validation.
We have mail-in/drop-off ballots. There's a barcode on my ballot receipt. There's a number on my drivers licence. If you put two and two together, you have a unique identifier that doesn't require my signature. My vote can be traced to my home address without dispute. I even provide my phone and email on the ballot. They have a box. The Count Clerk knows how to find me without a signature.
3
Mail-in ballots are the trend of the future - researching and selecting effective means of authentication is mission critical. Most sources that verify who I am ask for the last 4 digits of my SS # and/or my birthdate. The signature option is antiquated and this election proved it is needlessly disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters nationwide. Fix it before 2020, which will be here sooner than we imagine.
5
Florida has really screwed up again in so many ways that if I was I voter in this state I would be suing not the candidates. The current issues that need to be resolved are related to:
Lack of quality equipment to count votes
Possibly lack of leadership to supervise the process
Means to validate signatures
All of this can disenfranchise voters with regards to the entire process of an election. They come away feeling why bother. All of this should be addressed ASAP to restore confidence ahead of the 2020 vote note to mention it may have harmed the outcome of this election.
5
My signature day to day would never match. Glad they don't require signature matching in my state or I'd never be able to vote
3
Count every vote and let the chips fall where they may.
1
This is ridiculous. My drivers license signature is completely wrong because I’m left-handed and the cord on the electronic pen was too short for me. I guess my “official” signature on file was done with my non-dominant hand. This is just one of the numerous reasons a signature may not match up. Let’s not pretend like the republicans currently in charge aren’t aware of this. They’re trying to disenfranchise voters and set themselves up to contest a narrow loss in 2020.
6
“They are living in a digital world and as a result their signature isn’t a permanent measure of their identity.”
It's time for people to grow up.
1
I've broken both my arms at different times, and one time was when we were submitting our income tax forms. My signature was a mess, looking nothing like my normally sloppy-but-flowing usual signature. Also, I'm the check writer in the family. But no one ever questioned my signature (mature white woman that I am).
2
The Rs only play is disenfranchisement. It's sad, but they're going with what they have.
2
“is preposterous in a world that now includes biometrics and block chain.”
Seriously? We Republicans can't even get the Democrats to accept simple voter id cards and you really expect them to roll over and accept true bio-metric voter authentication?
1
Cerification by signature is being confused and conflated with verification OF signature.
The law is being abused. Either a fraud is sufficient to sopport a prosecution (and risk suit for false charges), or it is a frivolous denial of a votter’s right to vote and be counted. In the case of Rick Scott or Trump, the intent is asclear as their total lack of respect for fact orthe law.
5
as a commentator pointed out elsewhere ..what if there happens to be a broken arm involved... does that signature not count? and the elderly? their signatures change hourly based on the degree of tiredness or maybe even meds ..... mail in only for the state of Florida, no polling places no voting machines it is a circus run by clowns
2
I know this is highly irregular, but this time I absolutely could not make my voice heard without saying it in writing: https://ibin.co/4MhavWHNOfdd.jpg
That so many ballots got thrown out this way is beyond ludicrous. Every citizen 18 and older has the right to have their vote counted, and any alumnus of an American history class knows how handwriting has been used to deny this right in the past.
2
What is wrong with Florida? Why do they have such barbaric voting systems?
2
Whenever these recount shenanigans kick up in Florida, the right question to ask is, "Where is Roger Stone?" Stone pretty much single-handedly interfered with the Florida recount in 2000, leading to the Gore defeat and eventually, some might say, to our current predicament.
Sure enough, in a recent interview (https://wapo.st/2qLrlKh), Stone claims to be, “giving some advice here and there” to the Republicans trying to interfere with the 2018 recount in Florida. I'm not surprised to read that.
3
Another example in support of the efficacy of a photo ID in voting.
2
If you require a picture ID why require a signature?
1
@A reader
Because you don't mail your driver's license in with your ballot.
Me, I like to vote in person on election day. But there are times when that is impossible or inconvenient.
In fairness to Democracy, candidates and the voters; every signature vote contested should be granted an automatic extension instead of an automatic dismissal/disqualification and an opportunity for the voters to resubmit his/her vote. A reasonable amount of time needs to be allotted; a week or two may not be ample time for many voters.
It’s very easy for someone to subjective determine what a valid signature should look like especially if there is a hidden agenda…..signatures do not always match.
1
The DMV is not the right place to register to vote. Sure, it’s easy, but there are too many problems. Squiggles that look nothing like a signature. Overloaded staff that can’t verify citizenship. Stolen or fake social security numbers. Even if it costs the states money, all should maintain annual registration booths. Something this important should not depend on the DMV.
2
We should have give up signatures for thumb prints on documents of all types decades ago. They do not change and are far more reliable.
1
In Norway, we use a bank/visa card as an identity card.
It is a picture of me on it together with my social security number. I even use it in Spain as an ID.
It must be possible to come up with something similar. And we do not sign it by hand, but U can use a code your phone or your watch if they are linked up to it from your bank.
This hand signature is something so old-fashioned, besides let the politicians decide is just crazy... It is like leaving the horse in charge of feeding the horse. :)
2
The utter dysfunctionality displayed by the State of Florida over the years has consistently amazed the rest of the country. It is a gift.
2
Oregon 20 years ago moved to a system of mailing out ballots to every registered voter several weeks before each election -- and signature verification is a key "integrity check." But so is our well-designed "curing" process, by which voters whose signatures are flagged as possible mismatches are automatically contacted -- by mail, text message, e mail, and phone calls -- and given over a week AFTER the election to update their voter registration cards.
We, and other "Vote at Home" states like Colorado and Washington, have well-designed laws and practices that "lean forward", to help enfranchise legitimate voters -- rather than needlessly strict deadlines and practices (as in FL and GA) that end up disenfranchising legitimate voters. These best practices already out there -- which can continue to improve, too -- are a far better solution than abandoning signature checks altogether.
We also need to stop collectively obsessing and lamenting about "how long" the validation and counting of ballots can take. (This applies to lots of impatient journalists, too). The Republic will not fail, if a handful of very close races take a week or three to resolve. Indeed, it's one reason why we have early November elections, for offices whose terms don't start until January. Better laws and processes will take a bit more time to do things right --but that's a puny inconvenience for a few so that every legitimate vote cast can and will be counted.
3
When I was in fifth or sixth grade, my mom took me to the Eastchester Savings Bank and opened a savings account for me. When I was in my thirties, I decided it was time to close the account. I sent in a request by mail, but it was rejected because the signatures did not match.
So I laboriously signed a second letter with the signature that I must have used in elementary school, with all the curlicues I was taught to use but had since dropped out of the way I sign my name. It was accepted.
The whole idea of matching a signature made with a finger on a touch screen is misguided, because that's not how people learn to write their signature.
If the problem is one of the reliability of signatures, how is Elias's "solution," which requires voters to sign a form, a solution? Doesn't the very problem it's supposed to solve arise once again in connection with the signature on the form?
3
The same thing happened to me. A signature twenty years old "on record" from who knows where was Colorado's excuse. As an expat I can't just run down to the Secretary of State's office and correct the problem. A copy of my driver's license and my passport made my vote count but I'm going to contact the ACLU and add my name to the list of complainants. Thanks for this article
5
Are signatures on an electronic touch pad a reliable reflection of one’s normal pen-and-paper signature? Absolutely not! Ask any left-hander who normally curls his or her hand into inverted posture while writing at a desk, table, or DMV counter, something impossible with touch screens. Good luck to the ACLU in battling disenfranchisement.
10
The arthritis now in my hands from being over 60 and playing too much piano has messed up my signature. The one I had in 1980 when I moved to CA and registered to vote here surely looked better!. I guess in FL my vote would be thrown out.
7
Both of my children are voters and they have yet to develop a "signature". I cannot imagine trying to match their scrawl on a voter registration with what they are producing now. My signature is pretty consistent as I did go to Catholic school, but when I'm rushed, it might not pass muster.
Geez, talk about intentional disenfranchisement. What next? You aren't wearing your hair in a similar manner to your driver's license so you can't vote?
9
Unless Florida's election officials are certified handwriting experts they have no business interpreting signatures. The Democrats are correct on this one; that's disenfranchisement. There has never been a literacy standard to vote.
6
I have an idea. Picture ID.
Oh I forgot that discriminates against some people
As I’ve said before , I don’t get lt. Been voting for over 50 years.It’s my responsibility to make sure I can vote not someone else’s.
2
@John Nacey As long as you can get yourself registered, and don't become a stroke victim or are injured in a car crash or become afflicted with loss of sight, hooray for you! Those other citizens who might not be so fortunate (physically or mentally) might need assistance with their "responsibility." Should we the people just stand back and chide them for shirking their "responsibility?" It's good to remember that not every US citizen is 100% able in all ways. Their disabilities does not mean they are irresponsible.
2
@John, Agree totally. Perhaps we should just go to retinal scans or fingerprints. That would solve most problems.
@John Nacey No it is not your responsibility to jump through government hurdles to secure your RIGHTS
1
First our all, your signature is your mark. It is yours. You are allowed to change it if you feel like it. Comparing your signature today to your signature from years ago is not reasonable. You are allowed to use an X for your signature if that is what you like.
On top of that, electronic signing is completely different from writing with a pen. When I sign on a screen, it looks different every time, and it barely resembles my handwritten signature at all. Using electronic signatures to verify identity is completely unreasonable
7
I spent a long time researching the all the options in the 6 page FLORIDA ballot, but arthritis has changed my signature over time. Is my ballot sitting in a pile somewhere?
3
I have always had miserable penmanship. I last registered to vote 47 years ago in a hot church basement, signing my crabbed scrawl using a too-low table. The signature doesn't look anything like my present efforts. In the current climate I go to the polls with my Social Security card (with an even worse signature on it), voter's card, passport and state id and can hardly wait for someone to give me grief.
4
Voting by mail should be the norm. Instead the usual crowd that doesn’t want to see every vote count is out to disenfranchise those that vote by mail. Requiring that signatures match exactly over the years of one’s lifetime is another impediment to voting.
3
Remember NYC Mayor John Lindsay? With two distinct signatures, one slanting nicely to the right, the other heading straight up and down? He said it depended on his mood. I remember because mine did that too--and for the same reason. Now with our electronic signing, I must have 100,000 signatures, and that's not even on purpose. Those Republicans will stop at NOTHING to disqualify a vote.
3
With the introduction of those digital tablets that we are all asked to sign when we use a credit card, I've lost all confidence in using a person's signature as proof of their identity. My signature always looks like a mess on those things. I hear that complaint from a lot of other people too. So, it's obvious to me there needs to be an improvement in how voting is done - specifically how one proves their identity. We have to be confident that everyone's vote is counted, and no one is left out of the process because of things like "shaky" hand writing. These elections that stretch into months of re-counts and allegations of fraud from both parties, boxes of lost ballots, etc., has to stop.
3
It is common knowledge that no two signatures are exactly the same and signatures change as people age. My 95 year old mother has tremors in her hands and her signatures today are vastly different than her signatures of a few years ago. But the Republicans won't change any laws because they figure that more Democratic ballots than Republican ballots will be invalidated The Professor Smith mentioned in the article should do a comparison of how this signature issue is playing out in counties that are primarily Republican and, by county and by state, the percentage of Democratic ballots which are being disqualified vs the percentage of Republican ballots.
4
@Bob Republicans can choose which ballots to invalidate by signature match which is the whole point of this exercise.
2
I have a number of documents I've signed over the years, my social security card, when I was about 12, my draft card when I was 18, as well as other documents, i.e. drivers licenses. Yes, my signature has made some changes, but the main parts of my signature can be seen as being fairly consistent. My wife and I just bought a house, my signature changed a little due to the volume of documents and the ease of different pens, but the main parts of my signature remained the same. Maybe it is because I'm 70 and we had to learn cursive. A few years ago I gave my mother a book of poems, she wanted me to write an inscription, I had to practice my cursive, but your signature is different, your signature is what you decided it to be, it's yours.
2
I am fascinated by this article. As a history professor, I have been seeing that younger students do have trouble with cursive--they can't read handwritten documents in the archives and will need paleography classes to learn how to decipher handwriting in their native English language. But what this article misses is that the physical process of signing electronic screens is really different from how we sign a piece of paper. A small electronic screen is cramped, and the stylus awkward, not allowing us to spread out the way we do on paper. I have no doubt that my signature is different on credit card slips, legal documents, letters, and electronic screens.
6
This is indeed disenfranchisement, and my ballot would be the first to be disqualified. My signature has changed significantly through the years, even over the past few years. It started when we were closing on a property. The 84+ signatures required during that process reduced my legible cursive to a jagged sine curve. And, especially in the age of styluses at check-out counters, I have never really tried to reimpose legibility.
3
My signature is never the same and the one in that is now a permanent record in the voting log book was penned nearly 40 years ago. I can get close but you could easily argue that it wasn't me that voted last week based on the swoosh.
I say, if you are going to discard someone's vote based on a signature discrepancy, or any other for that matter, then you must provide that person the opportunity to know that their vote is in question and provide them time and a some method to remedy the discrepancy.
Every person's vote should be and must be counted.
10
This is a direct discrimination against the elderly. I am 75 and though not suffering from any particular impairment find it increasingly difficult to maintain the same exact signature that I did without any thought or difficulty in my earlier years. Now I find I have to concentrate to form the letters and invariably one or two of the characters are not consistent with say the one done the day before.
6
Does this make a case for identification cards with a picture?
7
@jns Yes, it does. And the card should be free to the applicant after the information is verified.
2
My signature is completely different from my earlier days this is Jim Crow writ large.
6
It seems like every political candidate is out to get elected by any means possible - legal or illegal, ethical or unethical. There is no longer respect for the glorious idea of democracy or its protection. As there is no self-correcting mechanism to fix this, there will need to be a paradigm shift in human thought if democracies like America's are to exist.
Donald Trump is not concerned with the Democrats' barricades or bridges; he knows he doesn't have to be. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like a bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants.
If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds would see the survival of an individual's belief as more important than the survival of democracy or anything else. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
Like many people my signature varies drastically depending on my state of mind and the conditions at play when I sign it. Often it is no more than an illegible scratching. If I sign on an electronic pad it is even more unrecognizable. I'm sure this will only get worse as I age and lose motor control. A signature should not be the single means of ID for something as important as voting. Since there is no reliable way to determine these signatures, no ballot should be tossed out based solely on some election workers random judgement of a signature. More harm is done to the validity of the voting process by throwing out these ballots than by including them. Since signatures were chosen as the form of ID, the onus is on the election officials to prove that the signature is invalid. They should take the time to contact each voter affected and verify their identity. If they cannot do this, just keep the ballot. They should never err in the direction of voter suppression.
7
I honestly had no idea that the poll workers were even comparing my signature on the sign-in form to my driver's license. Utterly ridiculous for all the reasons mentioned in this article in addition to the fact that the electronic signature devices typically fail to capture a signature accurately. I've given up actually trying to sign and just do a squiggle now.
4
You have to wonder, why Florida, a perennial swing state, keeps having the same type of election ballot issues almost two decades after Bush-Gore fiasco.
The lack of foresight is astonishing. Given how haphazard almost everyone scribbles down credit card signatures everyday, does it surprise anyone that signatures don't match well? Shouldn't officials in charge see this coming from miles away? This is massive incompetency and negligence.
5
The days of sloppy penmanship and trying to match voter signatures are coming to an end. The handwriting is on the wall (if you can make it out).
7
What a bunch of bunk! My signature is different every time I use it. It differs if I'm standing or sitting, if it's on paper, cardboard, glass or plastic, if I'm in a good mood or not. Sometimes I dot my I and sometimes I don't, sometimes the last two letters, er, is written out and sometimes I just use a straight line. It differs if I'm in a hurry of if I'm signing a birthday card, or how much space I have, etc.
This is nothing more than voter fraud committed by the state or the government.
5
@Birdman - So then i guess you'd have no problem requiring ID in order to vote?
If your bank or stores or IRS accepts your signature on a check, your scribbling on a touch screen which varies over time, varies whether the touch screen's pen is missing or varies according to how rushed you feel the match-up of a signature [letter formation, letters above or below the line] using this standard to verify a vote seems arbitrary. What a revolting development this is.
4
“We don’t need untrained people making judgments about something they know nothing about,” he said.
And we still wonder how he got voted president. Oh sorry, this is about the ballot counters.
4
wow, I didn't know it was so easy to tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. Just look at their penmanship.
3
I get that the signature is an imperfect way to validate an identity...but are you people really advocating no verification of mail in ballots? You think the Russians can't get stamps?
2
Comparing a signature from an electronic pad is nuts. NOBODY has a signature from an electronic pad that looks like his signature with pen and paper. Those pads are elevated so your arm isn’t anchored; they are wobbly; they are messed up from people using the wrong pens. I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone challenged my signature from such a pad, and now I know that it isn’t the pad signature that is challenged but the pen and paper signature! Voter suppression for sure!
5
So, signatures that are okay with credit card companies, banking institutions everywhere, etc. are not good enough for Florida? What makes THEM so special?
Something I've noticed in my OWN signature - the more I keyboard or swipe on devices, the"sloppier" my handwriting, AND my signature, gets!
6
Why isn't this a voting rights issue? Of course, this White House and its DOJ are trying to take away voting rights. The Florida signature test disproportionately disqualifies the ballots of young people, old people, Democrats, and who knows who else. Yes, comparing signatures is part of the official Florida voting rules. But official rules and laws need not be Constitutional. There is no evidence that any of these folks are not who they purport to be. If Florida wanted fair elections in which neither party had an advantage, they would have done something about this. Fair elections, however, are what they don't want.
4
If credit card signatures were the comparison, 80% of voters would be have their vote thrown out.
6
How exactly will *signing* an attestation of voting eligibility solve this rare problem of inconsistent signatures?
In any case, the standard photo ID shown at the polls didn't suffer from this problem - yet another case of the search for illusory improvement breaking a system that worked well enough.
1
Only in America, is what this European thinks. And that is what all the Europeans, I spoke about this, think. 'America the greatest democracy', Please, don't make us laugh. Fix this, and fix it truthfully. About the signatures: My signature depends on whether I am sitting down or standing up, whether I have a table (stable too) that is balancing my writing, or do I have to do my signature out on an irregular surface. Do I have a ballpoint or a fountain pen for use? And don't get me started on writing my signature on a screen, It never ever looks like my signature. I have used this signature for 40 years and it still varies with paper, writing utensil, and probably time of day. All not because I don't write or are uneducated, but because people do not have a 'consistent' signature like they are robots. The idea that my vote would depend on my signature matching the one on my driver licence or passport tells the story how voting is a casino in the USA, not a democracy.
11
@Artemis US is not a democracy,it is a Republic
Unfortunately, my signature often differs depending on the pen or my writing since I am an older voter.
5
The reason for the signature match is clear - it disenfranchises minority and young voters and that is why they use it. All the issues brought up in this article about problems with signatures have been around for a long time. If Florida and other states wanted to they could come up with far better ways to validate a voters identification. Oh but Republicans run Florida, they upheld this law and now they are suing to not count the ballots. Why do we even bother giving them the benefit of the doubt?
4
@Annie P
And I guarantee that in Republican leaving areas these rules are ignored.
A signature from an electronic pad should NEVER be used as the standard for comparison!!! Those things are hard to sign normally. The standard for any comparison ought by law to be a signature made by pen on real paper. This is especially true if you are looking at paper ballots filled out by pencil or pen.
4
I concur with what earlier people have already stated - those e-pad signatures rarely end up matching what an actual signature looks like. How terrible to use that as an excuse for not including someone’s vote.
2
In the 20+ years I've been reading about this, both parties have had ample time to remedy this issue. We've had time to go door to door and give everyone their own ID! The truth seems to be that politicians would rather fight about it than find an efficient solution.
4
My 82 year old brother-in-law with arthritis signed his ballot...it may not look like a previous one because of the increasing disability. Does that mean he no longer has his vote counted?
Probably, because he is more liberal.
4
Wow!! I do not remember ever voting where any of the poll watchers or election officials were under 60. So we have people with failing eyesight and no training attempting to say two signatures match or do not.
I spent a number of years working forgery cases for the Federal government. People were trained to do this, and training far beyond a few hours of on the job training or listening to some consultant speaker.
When a signature was in doubt, multiple exemplars were obtained from the person claiming their signature was forged. After that trained investigators compared all the exemplars to the suspected forged signature. This is not a one minute or less process.
Florida and other states conspired to disenfranchise voters using this charade of absolute signature match. There is no other way to see it. To absolutely match signatures, done properly, would mean that almost no one would be able to vote. It just takes far too much time, and cannot be done by grannies and granpas.
For having participated in this charade, Scot the unconvicted Medicare felon, should be barred from ever holding any office.
7
Just add me to the commenters stating that their signatures are not the same, sometimes from day-to-day. Normal aging affects muscles, bones, joints, and yes, handwriting. Mine is not the same as it was even a day ago because of the cold weather and joint pain. My bank calls often to ensure the signature on a check is mine.
Ms. Rodriguez's experience is blatant disenfranchisement. What else could explain receiving a notice after the appeal deadline?
Lawsuits, yes, lawsuits can save our votes.
5
I worked at a local precinct on election day checking IDs against ballot applications. The only "non matching" signatures were either older voters (shaky now due to declining vision or health) or the very young (whose penmanship if existent is still changing). Here in Michigan we fortunately still sign a piece of paper for our photo ID. Whenever I do have to sign an electronic pad, usually for a purchase, I think to myself how easily I could contest the charge as not my signature. Neither I nor I suspect anyone in Florida is trained in analyzing and matching penmanship. BTW, if I were to challenge an ID, the challenge would have required initialling by two volunteers - one a registered Democrat, one a registered Republican, and then the voter would have voted a provisional ballot, segregated and held like an absentee ballot.
And this correct name thing? Why do we have politicians on the ballot with other than THEIR legal names? Was Ronald D. DeSantis on the ballot in Florida? Was Rafael E.Cruz on the ballot in Florida?
50
@Bonnie Luternow
I also recently worked as an election judge and did notice some long time residents had outdated signatures. I encouraged them to update their signatures which is pretty easy with proper ID. But I also agree with others that a national ID with a chip would solve a lot of these problems as states have widely differing requirements for voter IDs which leads to voter supression.
3
@Bonnie Luternow
Ted Cruz is a Canadian Cuban playing Texas cowboy.
3
@Blackmamba
That's not the point.
I am a judge and when I voted early, a volunteer poll worker, questioned my identity despite a voter's registration card, valid state drivers license, and a passport that I just happened to have with me all because she did not like the looks of my signature. My signature depends on my mood and circumstances and even with handwriting experts, it is still an inexact science. Now non-handwriting experts are arbitrarily rejecting votes and disenfranchising voters because of this alleged voter fraud hysteria. Lastly, as a criminal lawyer for over 20 years, I have never seen even one voter fraud case.
85
@Ray
So you never seen or never involved in a voter fraud case? There have been several cases nationwide. https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/heritage-explains/voter-fraud. So you are implying without your passport you would not be able to vote. I am bit surprised your driver's license was not adequate. Does your voter's reg card have picture of you on it. I live in IL and know people who could not vote because someone already voting for them! They may fill out a provisional but that will not count unless the original vote is deleted. There is no investigation done.
What is solution to approve the identity of the voter?
When I voted this month, I noticed that my signature printed in the voter roll, from when I registered 32 years ago, was a bit different than what I signed that day. I hate to think that voting legally in good conscious may not be enough to exercise such an important civic responsibility.
4
I am a 64-year-old left hander. I find it impossible to make a recognizable signature on an electronic pad with my finger, or even with a stylus. I'm just saying, these arbitrary standards for signature verification are also unfair to lefties. Just ask any of us! We are a huge, unrecognized minority. We need a revolt from the left--I.e. Left- handed!
54
@L. Edward Phillips
Lefty or righty, as a lefty right handed women, my signature with a stylus signing my credit card is hardly recognizable.
Another difficulty is that when voting absentee the signature has to be written across the flap of the envelope and is not a fluid as a normal signature.
5
@L. Edward Phillips. I'm a lefty, and I agree completely! To start writing, left to right, is for righties an easy and intuitive move. For lefties, it's a forced battle, especially on an electronic pad!
5
@L. Edward Phillips
Hope that you left hand voted for Stacy Abrams.
The elder Bush, Clinton and Obama were all also wrong-handed.
5
That's a ploy to deny their rights. When I look at the way I sign, often in a hurry, there is a huge variation in my letters. Admittedly, I have lousy handwriting.
4
Check cashing services use thumbprints. Why can't voting? If cellphones can use fingerprints to unlock phones, why can't voting?
It is important to know that the person who registered to vote is the person voting.
2
@vineyridge How would you vet mail-in ballots?
It's not about signature matches. It's about vote suppression. If the signature issue is resolved the same sorts of people who are supposedly up in arms over this non-issue will just look for other ways to keep votes from counting. It's hard to think of a more un-American enterprise than keeping voters' ballots from being counted. I don't know what the laws are on this but it should be possible to prosecute vote suppressors criminally.
17
Anyone who has signed electronically on a signature pad understands how impossible it is to see the connection to their actual signature.
32
When electronic signature pads first came into widespread use, I worried that my e-squiggle bore NO resemblance to my signature on paper. Everyone assured me: "no problem." How ironic and awful that this seemingly incidental change wrought by "technology" is now threatening our democracy.
23
My signature has changed over the years.
My 99-year-old aunt has a pretty shaky handwriting these days.
My cousin, who has Parkinson's, can no longer sign his name.
I am not surprised that in an increasingly totalitarian country we are not allowing people to vote.
22
This seems so unnecessarily antiquated. My signature is probably different every time I sign my name. Why? Because I very rarely have to do so. I seldom write checks. And even credit cards no longer require a signature. There needs to be a different approach. Rejecting these votes is inappropriate. Any actual fraud is minimal.
17
It’s time we had nation wide standards for voting. Registration procedures, acceptable IDs, voting times, early voting, absentee deadlines, design of ballets, tabulating standards should be uniform across the country. These issues should not be susceptible to manipulation of state and local officials with political agendas. Stardards should be established by Washington.
25
@Pete Correct. As the right to vote is established nationally, so should be the standard by which they are counted. Time and again, States' Rights turn out to be devious means to circumvent individual rights. Time to abolish the electoral college for similar reasons. (I would do away with the Senate, too, but that's really wishful thinking. Why does a 21st C "democracy" require an 18C "Upper House?" The disproportionate power of voters in low-density states is anathema to one-person, one-vote democracy.)
2
I broke my right wrist in April, and it's still healing. Is my signature the same as what is "on file?"
12
Well there goes all the doctors who voted.
15
This is just another way to reduce the number of qualified voters. The votes should be counted!
Who under the age of 70 actually signs a digital signature pad today or on any piece of paper? I usually write my first initial and trail across the screen with a squiggle. Perhaps I'll sign with an X in the future to make sure there is no question that my signature matches.
14
I had no idea. I mailed in my vote in Florida. Where you sign the envelope, it doesn’t say anything about the signature being used for authentication purposes. I have no idea how I signed it, but I surely didn’t put any effort into making it look “right.” Nor so I know what my signature on file looks like. This is insanity and smacks of a clear constitutional violation. Too bad our courts are so stacked that they don’t much care anymore, so long as their constituents (yes, we’re in an era where judges have constituents) keep the majority.
19
@Heather
My signature changes between morning and evening already and even two written at the same time very quite a bit.
When voting absentee, I practice my signature writing in order for the one on the envelope to be very similar to the one of the ballet. Yet because the one on the envelope is written across the flap, it always differs a bit from the one of the ballot.
Only in America is voting made so difficult.
2
Its a well-known fact that Florida is a dark hole of democracy... the evidence from the 2000 election was plain as day... so I humbly ask.. why, nearly 20 years later.. a repeat? Just what was improved, made better , fixed? Nothing! The absurdity of disallowing a ballot because the signature doesn’t exactly match is deafening.... there’s not a doctor or a lawyer in this land who would be allowed to vote under these restrictions... wait a sec, maybe that would be a good idea!
12
My signature on file with voter registration from when I was 18 years old does not look like my signature today(44 years later). I have even remarked to the poll workers how different my signature is, and they just smile and give me my ticket. I know that my vote would be rejected in Florida based on what I’m reading. Seems to me there needs to more consistency across all states.
17
Just great. Of course I don't like any form of voter suppression, but really? You can't sign your name the same as what appears on your voter registration? This signature nonsense has been going on forever. Decades ago, only doctors did the chicken scratch signature. Now everyone's a doctor, when signing their name.
To the woman that wanted to get out of the DMV quickly..... Oh stop. Signing carefully and clearly probably would have taken two more seconds. It's a signature on your driver's license, not a credit card receipt, that gets destroyed at the end of the day.
I joked about this a couple years ago. "I signed my name and when I looked down at it, it was just a bunch of emoji's.
I was aware of this trend of not teaching cursive in schools.
I get it. Even when I write, it's a combination of print and cursive, but not when I sign things.
However, can we still instruct younger people to have a signature?
To the people whose votes get thrown away because of signature problems, You are suppressing yourselves.
2
Anyone who has signed their name on an electronic signature pad knows that the signature is often a sloppy version of what you’d like it to be, regardless of how slowly and carefully you write.
How about those of us that are just older and shakier?
How about those of us with disabilities?
How about those who have had accidents?
Are you saying we shouldn't be able to vote?
REALLY?
Why? Banks don't even require signatures for most transactions. Florida and voting need to get out of 1968 and catch up to the modern world.
Wasn't there a time when an X was good enough for a signature?
Who came up with this? What do they think they are preventing? Double voting? Impersonation?
People certainly cannot vote twice by faking signatures since there is only one person and one name.
If there's only one vote despite the signature not matching, are they afraid someone is pretending to be someone else? If so, signature mismatches isn't enough to detect imposters.
18
Photo IDs would eliminate the problem of mismatched signatures. Oh sorry never mind
7
We should take voting privileges away from the Senators from Florida until they can prove to the rest if the country they know what they are doing. What a mess.
12
An independent federal committee should be assigned to conduct all aspects of Florida elections: printing of ballots, locations of polling places, verification and recounts. If so many races are so close as to require recount, they should have a better mechanism in place for that. Election procedures are a state responsibility, but they just can't seem to do it right down there.
Luckily I looked online to make sure our votes had been received and discovered my husband’s had not been due to signature. His signature online was a scribble whereas on the ballot it was more legible. He called to rectify it and in the end it was counted. He later received a notice in the mail to update his signature on file.
Here I was worried about my 20yr old son’s signature because he had printed his name like it was on the ballot and then I made sure he signed it underneath.
This will be last time I will vote by mail in this state.
8
After waiting in a long line, voters here were directed to 4 people sitting at a long table. Next to each was a copy machine and in front of them was an electronic device for a signature. I walked up to one and handed my drivers license to the election official. He looked at it and said sign in. I scribbled my name on the electronic device like I do on letters and checks. After looking at it, he mentioned “not even close” to that appearing on the license. My reponse was, “So?” His response was “So, sign in again but this time with a signature you wouldn’t use at Publix.”, I again signed the electronic device in a fashion close to that on my license. He then apologized and said it would take a few minutes to print my ballot. Two things came out of this for me: I was tempted to challenge him on theneed to sign in again or that he was some kind of expert on handwriting comparisons. The other was not having ballots ready to hand out, wasting time printing them, that created long waits and lines to vote. A nonsensical antiquated unfair system of voting exists still not rectified necessitating more litigation.
20
@deuce - Shocking that your signature was challenged AND that you had to wait for your ballot to be printed! This entire issue is shocking. Clearly our voter ID laws need to be challenged, changed, and normalized on a nationwide basis...with no leeway for states to do their own thing (like Florida has been doing for years).
Until new ways of voting are established all votes should be counted. Most voters are the poll takers neighbors so fraud is not an issue here but voter suppression is.
12
Tell a doctor that their signature doesn't count at a pharmacy. How about a Clerk of Court telling a lawyer that their signature is invalid? If anyone in these professional groups were subject to signature scrutiny in their line of work, we'd be in a world of hurt.
12
Fun fact: Attorneys don’t literally sign Court documents anymore despite the rules requiring a signature. We just put our names at the end of a document
This is absurd. Signatures are not fingerprints, they can change over time. And many people go all year without signing a thing, finances and letters are handled digitally. Unless you are applying for a mortgage or entering a legal contract, you may never use a signature. So once again, these policies affect lower income people the most. I also have no doubt someone could forge my signature in two seconds.
15
It seems bizarre to me that the same state with a highly contested presidential campaign settled by SCOTUS could continue to be the one state with all these irregularities.
From everything I read, Florida--and other red states (don't tell me Florida is purple, not when the voting apparatus is so highly contested)--just continues to erect barriers to voting, instead of helping voters exercise their franchise.
You would think after the 2000 debacle, the Florida commissioner of elections would invest in equipment and training to make voting more uniform across precincts.
But I think Republicans like it that way, because it allows officials to fight over alleged "voter fraud."
The lack of uniform standards for voting that enable more people to participate is just another indicator of how much our democracy is "flawed" according to the Democracy Index of 2017.
20
If there are any basic requirements of states to remain a part of the Union, allowing their people to vote should be high on the list. We'd get along with 49.
8
In Washington State and in particular King county ballot signatures if inconsistent with signature of record, created upon registration, the voter must be contacted to revise it or the registrars office has to accept the ballot. In addition all ballots have a numbered tag which can be used by the voter to determine if the ballot has been accepted. It is important in this state to vote early as possible so as to be able to affirm acceptance of the ballot. One of the major issues can be moving prior to an election without re-registration. All ballots are mailed to residence of record and can be returned at no cost by depositing in a mail box or ballot box set in place by the county registrars office. My understanding is that if one moves in the last month before an election you may need to go to motor license or registrars office to update ones official residence. There was a major effort by the registrars office to remind individuals to update their residence of record. All homes have a street address. The homeless issue can be dealt with at a variety of state offices.
5
Tlaw, in practice the USPS often does not postmark mailed ballots without postage (Business Reply Mail), so those mailed by Election Day but arriving afterwards will not be counted.
My signature was rejected by the poll worker three times when I went to my polling place here in Florida. I sign documents on a daily basis in my work, and my signature is fairly consistent. If I’d mailed in my ballot, I believe it would not have been counted. There’s no doubt in my mind that this scrutiny of signatures is intended to disenfranchise a great many voters in Florida.
28
@Daniel Beugnet Yes, this is how it appears the powers in Florida, who included Scott as Governor, want it. He does not deserve to win.
7
If you can max out your credit card with a line or squiggle, why can’t you be guaranteed a vote with a good-faith version of your signature? Surely VISA and AMEX are as interested in the “real you” as the Florida Board of Elections.
25
actually, that is no longer true. Many stores no longer require signatures.
@Rufus Collins Visa and Amex no longer require signatures. they learned, and accepted, how pointless they are.
@Brassrat
Excellent point! Makes it even more preposterous that election officials can only identify you by matching John Hancocks.
(Johns Hancock?)
1
Whenever I get a delivery and have to sign an electronic pad using my finger while standing up I'm amazed at how weirdly different it looks and how hard it is to do, vs sitting down and using a pen.
20
SLOPPY SIGNATURES COUNT!!!! There is NO justification for excluding sloppy signatures on ballots. The "reasonable person test" goes something like this--people can charge anything on credit card with sloppy signatures--all the banks and merchants accept it--in fact the signatures u have to provide at supermarkets and elsewhere are guaranteed to be sloppy! The merchants get paid immediately. Given the variability of signatures held to be legal by banks, it is massive fraud and criminal at the highest level, to presume that "sloppy signatures" be excluded from votes counted! None whatsoever!
19
If the standard is how you sign on an electronic pad the whole system is flawed. Trying to get a signature to look right on tablets is almost impossible.
What can I say...
It does not surprise me, the land of the free. The number "one" democracy in the world. Why not show a standardized ID that everyone can agree on like passport, driving license, or a ID made by your local post office. In Norway, if you do not have that your birth certificate is also allowed, or like in EU where everybody have their own EU ID card they can use to identifiy wherver they are in EU, Why not let the people decide what is legal instead of the politicians, or maybe that will be anarchy, instead of democratic.
4
I have to sign a book every time I vote. My original signature is in the book I sign and I sign underneath that signature. My handwriting is NOT the same as it was when I registered to vote in NY back in 1980. To this day no one has ever questioned my signature.
12
Hence the need for voter id
7
@Rhsmd1
How does voter ID work with mail-in ballot? I was recently partially paralyzed in an accident and now my vote doesn't count. People died for that vote can you blame me for wanting to fight for my right I mean physically I'd like to tear somebody apart who decides my vote doesn't count. We want to accept as many votes as possible these are not fraudulent votes just sloppy handwriting. You have to keep in mind the goal. The goal is to prevent fraud these are not fraudulent votes, no matter what fox tells you. On top of being in a horrible accident now I'm being faced with my vote not counting because my hands don't work very well.
6
The problem is requiring vote by mail. Voting in person worked fine and allowed the rare problems to be sorted out at the polling place.
"Voting in person worked fine...". Yes, it did for me, too, because my polling place has always been within walking distance from my house, I have work hours that allow me plenty of time to get there (and I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes in line), I don't have a disability that keeps me home-bound. But that's not true for many, many citizens. We need as many alternate and accessible means of casting a vote as can be reasonably offered, to ensure ALL citizens can vote, and ALL VOTES COUNT.
1
Why is it possible to identify who marked a ballot? That’s illegal.
3
Whereas I can transact every aspect of my life on my phone, to vote I must drive to a building, wait for hours, use a machine to punch holes in a piece of paper which is read into a reader (that may not work), connected by dial up modem (maybe) and then recounted by humans sitting across from $400 per hour attorneys.
Whereas I can execute hundreds of stock trades in seconds and get an up to date statement minutes later, I must use this Buggy Whip monstrosity to cast a vote.
It's no wonder why the US falls behind China every single day.
But if that system is ridiculous, the process of finding candidates is downright hideous. No background checks are required, no resume, previous felonies including child molestation is OK, no completed studies, no degree in management, no experience, to the contrary, all that's required is a gift of gab.
Net result? Only the best liars make it to the top including a man who paints his face orange and regales the world on that part of the female body where it's OK TO GRAB THEM.
21
Holding up China as the way to "choose" candidates and "vote" is perhaps not the best argument. :)
Why are STATES allowed to set standards for voting in a FEDERAL election??
Standards for voting for all FEDERAL ELECTIONS should be established by the federal government and should be uniform state-to-state.
18
@Michael Richter
You might read the United States Constitution for an answer.
@Michael Richter ALL elections should conform to a federal standard. That's how the federal government would protect voters in states and localities where the right to vote is suppressed by those in state and local power.
@Michael Richter - AMEN to that!
Although I generally vote the Democratic Party ticket, I register myself as a Republican as a matter of self-defense.
9
Very wise. I hope you also vote in their primaries to try to get sane candidates on their ballots? We need more Dems to go register as Republicans, especially in states that like to put arch conservatives on their ballots.
2
@Alexandra Hamilton A better approach in some states and localities would be to nominate the WEAKEST candidate in the opposing party.
Signatures are an outdated method of id.
Where on the internet, where one may purchase all sorts of things, are we identified by our scribbled handwriting?
Just let us all vote by mail, and assign us, or let us choose, a six digit code, and let it us vote.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
5
No two of my signatures are identical. How about forcing the challenger to bear the cost of a DNA test to disprove your identity.
6
Why do they need signatures anyway? We don’t use them in NH. They just verify you by you ID, drivers license, when you walk into vote. We don’t sign our ballots.
6
In Florida many people vote by mail. You have to sign the outside of the envelope, not the ballot itself.
1
Requiring Photo ID makes sense except many people, especially poor people or urban dwellers, don’t have drivers’ licenses. How to get these folks an alternative photo ID in a way that is not unduly burdensome becomes an issue. Making people take public transportation to a photo ID office during the working day is likely to be a huge disincentive to vote. People ought to be willing to do that but would they really take time off work (possibly many hours if the photo office was far away, buses were slow, hours were limited and there were lines) to get a photo ID only needed to cast a vote every few years?
They're not "sloppy signatures". There are many reasons for changing, differing signatures, including the pen, media, age, disability, infrequency, etc. The article title unnecessarily disparages well intended voters.
16
Are they “sloppy” signatures or fraudulent signatures?
2
I have Parkinson's and am no longer able to legibly sign my name. When I voted last week, I told the election official my signature would not match what was on record. She said, "Don't worry, we know who you are."
But what if I had voted absentee and there was an obvious mismatch?
64
@GDR
Indeed.
America has Trump and sons.
1
"Many Democrats argue that imposing new standards for evaluating signatures could discourage some voters, especially foreign-born citizens, from even trying to cast ballots."
Isn't that the whole idea?
6
Yes, it is the idea. The GOP wants to suppress the votes of foreign born Citizens, minorities etc.
This is not rocket science. It comes down to do they have 100% commitment to count everybody regardless of their social, financial and political category. If they are not sold on sanctity of the process, there is no shortage of ways to mess up the process.
Also, actual candidates remaining in positions to oversee elections - given the nature of accusatory advertising now so commonly during in elections - raises many doubts in people's minds about the intentions and objectives of such people.
Look around. Learn from other countries. You're not the only ones doing this.
7
If comparisons of signatures are based on how we sign signature pads where we have no control, we are all doomed. And BTW, all credit card companies accept those signatures.
11
When I went to vote this year, I was astonished to find I needed no form of identification. I walked in, told them who I was, signed, and voted. I could very easily have walked over to another voting venue, told them I was someone else, signed and voted again. And again. (Of course, I didn't).
This issue of signatures has only arisen because of the effort to eliminate the need for valid ID -- on the basis that some people don't have valid ID. But instead we have this goofy system of checking signatures.
Technology is everywhere -- except where it counts.
2
@Hopeful Libertarian - While the scenario you describe MIGHT be possible, but probably not, why on earth would anyone commit a pointless felony like that? Even if you were able to do it twice at every precinct in a given city, you would not be able to change the outcome, even in a close race. The evidence shows that the scenario you describe does not happen. The tiny number of cases of fraud that do occur more often have to do with other factors, like ignorance, but in any case, face-to-face fraud is statistically insignificant and nothing to worry about. Now you know. Signature matching, being absolutely unnecessary, is also absolutely invalid for the purpose for which it is being used. P.S. Interesting wish for a Libertarian - government issued IDs, at the last Libertarian national convention, there was a significant movement to add the abolishment of the system of driver's licenses to the platform as a goal.
3
@Hopeful Libertarian
It would take hours and hours especially in a city like mine, Miami, to go to another polling place. Especially on voting day lines are terribly long. How many people are going to take the time and how many votes could they possibly cast? This has been studied and proven not to be a phenomenon that is of any significance. In-person voter fraud for all practical purposes does not exist. It's proven, let's move on to other arguments. This shouldn't be that hard to solve
2
Actually, there's almost no evidence one way or the other about voting fraud. We assume it's rare, but nobody has actually checked.
1
If these votes are numerous enough to make a difference, then each individual should be contact to confirm the vote is or isn't their vote. There is no excuse for allowing false claims of fraud to throw out valid votes. A few days matter less than a full and accurate count.
I would think those who suggest these ballots are fraudulent would want to know this (one way or the other), seeing how concerned they are about the possibility of fraud.
5
@jmw And what happens to the secrecy of your ballot when it is vetted against your identity AFTER you cast it?
Signatures change over the years as we age. It is absolutely criminal to disqualify them.
My signature looks nothing like it did even last year.
3
Listening to Trump, Rubio and the other Neanderthals, their real fear is that democracy might work and throw all of them out of a job.
Gerrymandering in Texas, Florida,North Carolina and elsewhere, the removal of polling stations from poor areas, the suppression of votes by whatever means they can think of, having voting days on a working day and not a holiday - all of this is the antithesis of Democracy. We should make it easy and accessible for every person in the US to vote.
4
Free photograph id cards should be available for voter id. Right now one has to pay for a card in Pennsylvania, not sure about Florida. Signature match in 2018 is a joke, millennials can barely hold a pen. And this outdated ballot counting system in Florida sounds like the 19th century! I don’t think it’s fraud in Florida, it’s outdated equipment, materials and poor leadership leading to unreliable results. A signature pad signature can’t be compared to a paper signature, that’s apples to oranges. Where is the logic here? Loyal Democrat saying it’s time for new election officials to bring Florida into a more reliable era where this can’t happen again. Elections should be run by both parties, not one.
1
No one's signature on an electronic signature pad can possibly be cause for nullification.Try as you can, the "pen" slips, there isn't enough room, you are writing at a weird angle, etc. Ridiculous. For whatever reason, there needs to be a consistent standard across all states. More incompetence. And I have no doubt that voter suppression is a prime motivation.
7
I don't know how anyone's signature is consistent on a touch screen.
4
Me signature is also inconsistent....my hand writing is sloppy, always has been. This is not the way to validate ballots.
3
Sounds to me like Republican lawyers’ claims on this issue in court border on perjury. They are fully aware of how voters’ signatures vary over time, as expressed very well in some of the other comments. Maybe it’s time to “lock them up.”
2
When I have to put a “signature” on an electronic pad, I write “Napoleon Bonaparte,” knowing that no one will look at it, and it looks as much like my real name as any other electronic squiggle. The idea that important rights could depend on such a “signature” is appalling. Clearly, protecting democracy is the last thing on the minds of officials in Florida.
3
One of the surest ways to detect forgeries is precisely identical signatures. No human signs his/her name identically every time.
The FBI (and probably Florida law enforcement) has handwriting experts who could supervise the non-experts who are evaluating signatures. Democracy is too important to disenfranchise voters just because they're signatures are typical of humans.
3
I thought such a comparison was invalidated as an authenticity test in several states. How can it continue to be used in Florida? And used as a partisan weapon? Outrageous!
2
Thank you for this detailed report. I find this practice of throwing out votes outrageous. Votes should not be thrown out based on your e-signature at the DMV. Everyone wants in and out of there as quickly as possible and my electronic signature almost never looks like my written one. And, none of children has ever been asked to learn cursive so that was another great point the article brought up. Why are officials so willing to disenfranchise their fellows? Despicable.
1
An electronic signature pad... Good lord. Has anyone ever been able to sign their name legibly on one of those things?? I'm all in favor of some sort of voter ID laws but this sort of nonsense rears it's ugly head every election cycle, mostly in Republican controlled southern States.
2
Interesting that they were comparing it to a drivers' license signature considering you generally don't need state ID to vote. I don't know how much voter fraud there is but I would be interested to do a study. We should compare the names and addresses of people who vote; with lists of state IDs or drivers licenses; with where children attend school; with where your income tax is filed. Every name of a person who votes should correspond with a tax return, a state ID, and the school district where a child attends school. I don't know how much voter fraud we would find but I bet we would discover a lot of tax evasion, auto insurance fraud, and educational theft of services.
12
@Mike
About 50 cases out of hundreds of millions of voters over decades.
The voter fraud that matters was the hacking and meddling of Julian Assange, James Comey, Mitch McConnell, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.
3
@Mike I and many other voters are long past the time we had children in the public school system. And Florida and other states do not have income tax, so that wouldn't help. I had to prove that I was a US citizen in order to get my Florida driver license. That should be sufficient. Some states do not require proof of citizenship in order to vote. That is a much bigger issue.
On a recent visit to CVS, my son explained to me that NO ONE writes an actual signature on an electronic pad, you just make some sort of mark. Now, I'm a flaming liberal, but this is one area where I differ from other liberals. I believe that every US citizen and legal resident should be issued a Federal government wallet-sized plastic picture ID with embedded electronics. The idea that the US can do a national census, but can't do the necessary outreach to supply people with IDs is nonsense. Older voters who have difficulty finding birth certificates should be assigned a caseworker to fix the problem. There should be no cost. Voter registration is unnecessary once you have a card like this, and challenges to voting would be rare. The funny thing, it used to be conservatives who objected to IDs on the grounds that it was a violation of an American right to anonymity. Today it is liberals, on the grounds that Democratic voters would have difficulty getting IDs, and that the lack of IDs would be used to target those in the US illegally.
24
Maybe we should have something like a "vote credit card." Regular credit cards have figured out how to lend us lots of mony without our signatures.
17
This is preposterous! Signature analysis is extremely difficult and is an inexact science. Very few have those skills,certainly not election board employees. Besides, peoples signatures change over time as we age. Not only that, cursive writing skills deteriorate if we don't use them. Mine have become so bad, that I print. I can't read my own writing if I don't print.
This is voter disenfranchisement, no sorry, voter suppression. Everyone gets to vote, even if you have arthritis, or lost three fingers in an accident, or your hand doesn't work well anymore or you just made a really sloppy signature. In my state, we sign a touch screen with our fingertip which in no way represents a pen written signature. It's just a formality.
Florida! The land that time forgot.
15
My signature would not be counted. It is not consistent.
9
This is ridiculous. My signature has changed immensely over the years—and I won penmanship awards in elementary school. (Which tells you I am at least approaching old.) A handwriting expert could probably verify it, but to most people it's certainly not going to look the same as when I signed my voter registration.
I don't write by hand much, and on the few occasions when a signature is required, most are with a sluggish electronic pen that looks nothing like the one I would produce with the fountain pen of my penmanship days (cartridge pen, to be more precise) or with the Pilot G2 gel pens I buy by the box for the increasingly rare occasion when I jot notes at home or at work.
What is the point of requiring multiple forms of ID both to register to vote and then to actually vote, especially photo ID, if it's going to come down to a scribble?
20
Sloppy signature plea to reject votes is simply a part of the Republican gameplan of disenfranchising voters on ethno-racial discriminatory grounds which is violative of the constitutional provisions of the equal protection of all under the law and the freedom of speech and expression.
30
Each time I vote in person (PA), I have to look at the original signature to see how many letters I put in that day. As I get older, more letters drop off the end and become a line.
My mailed-in vote would not have been counted in FL.
25
I vote in person just because my signature is always somewhat different and few letters are discernible. Now, my arthritis has added to the problem of matching signatures. A signature in person, at least, can be confirmed with multiple IDs and a few people around to verify it. We must come up with something like a pin number to add to a signature for absentee, mail-in ballots if this is the new way to take away my right to vote, my most precious right in a democratic country and state.
13
I worked at the polls in Florida on election day (not in South Florida). We are pretty careful not to reject signatures that are a little sloppy or a little different if some letters match well. State law also offers a change of signature affidavit just for such things as advancing arthritis and other problems. We allow them to sign a piece of paper when they cannot write on the signature pad. I have never rejected a signature. I do not know how mail and absentee ballots are done. I continue to be amazed however at how many people do not always use the same signature. And I was appalled at the man who signed in a way unrelated to the signature I was comparing it to announcing proudly that he always signs differently so no one can copy his signature and steal his identity. I asked him to sign again as we are allowed to do. Signature and photo ids are required in many states now to avoid voter fraud so people need to be aware of how they sign things like their driver's license.
1
I was canvassing a neighborhood many years ago. I knocked on the door of this big house with my canvass list showing more than a half dozen registered voters . A man answered the door and I identified myself and asked to speak with the names of the young people on the list. He laughed at me, led me into a kitchen dining area where my registered voters were adults in high chairs being fed by a caretaker.
3
Adults in high chairs ? Really ? Do you remember the address and how you got there ?
The signature rule is absurd. Mine is never the same.
This is just a ruse to arbitrarily deny selected people their right to vote. I doubt that many signatures would pass scrutiny if the intent is there. This is just another Republican Party voter suppression technique.
How many voters illegally vote in Florida? I doubt it is even more than 10. Yet how many votes are being disqualified due to this ridiculous and arbitrary rule?
The Republicans must have calculated that the results would benefit them greatly in a tight election.
Just another undemocratic attempt to thwart the will of the people and undoubtedly minorities and the elderly.
14
Can you imagine VISA and MASTERCARD checking for exact signatures ? Commerce would stop !
Get your facts straight. The supervisor of elections on Broward and Palmeach counties are democrats.
Maybe this is a democratic tactic to disenfranchise voters.
2
I don't completely understand. Wasn't the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections that was having the hard time a Democrat? The comments talk about Republicans disenfranchising voters. I thought the problem was sloppiness on her part.
7
To rule against these disenfranchised voters the court will have to accept the notion that these mail-in ballots somehow ended up in the hands of the wrong people, who then filled out the ballot and signed it, all the while not knowing what the intended recipient of the ballot’s handwriting looked like; meanwhile, no one appears to have reported not receiving their ballot to election officials. I bet I’m not the only one afraid this is exactly what is going to happen.
10
Absolute logic here you've pointed out. Someone has to request a mail-in ballot, to an address. Hard to envision a scenario of widespread fraud if the single ballot goes to the requester's address. Surely the state has a way to only allow that person, whatever their signature looks like, to vote only once.
As others have pointed out, signatures vary. It's impossible to sign the back of a credit card in the tiny shiny strip and have it look like your signature on paper. I bet all of us would fail the test if we gathered up all our documents signed over a period of years and lined them up. I guess I can get out of paying for anything where I had to use the electronic signature pad because all I can produce is a squiggly line. This is a red herring.
1
There’s always a new way to throw out votes in Florida.
37
It is almost impossible to write a neat, readable signature on one of those electronic pads at a checkout. Wanting a paper signature to match one of those is pure nonsense, not to mention the other problems stated with signatures
38
So people completely untrained on signature analysis will decided the validity of votes? God, at least a hanging chad stood a better chance of counting. Banks hardly even look at signatures any longer for checks or credit cards. In this day and age can we please use some technology and common sense for voting?
12
This is worse than post-Reconstruction because the country is pretending that it has moved forward while valid ballots and voters are allowed to be purged on a mass scale. More people are taking action now, realizing that provisional ballots are also part of the ruse not to count votes. The positive court decisions in GA, FL, NC, PA and other states, validating the obvious, are a good development. However, if the current structure allows someone like Kemp, who should be in prison for election fraud, to abuse power, then more citizens will continue to organize themselves to put this to a stop if our elected officials will not. Kobach's aims were exposed in this round, but that is not enough. He and many others must be punished for their actions.
9
I am still very concerned that my mail in vote has not been counted on Broward! I saw that it was received on their website on Nov. 1, but how do I know if they counted it and didn’t reject it for my signature? I wanted to include the voter ID card with my ballot in the envelope. At this point, voters should get a receipt saying our vote was counted. This way we could all get together and tally our own votes.
12
@Mary Go to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections web page (browardsoe.org) and click on the "My Status" option in the menu bar. After you supply identifying information, it will indicate if you voted in several past elections, including 2018.
1
I have been voting for years in New York State and NYC and my signature has been verified and examined each time. It seems a reasonable minimum to validate a ballot and one study by the A.C.L.U. and the discussion of cursive writing fails to convince me that disqualified ballots are mainly in one party. Surely there is voter suppression, by other means, and we are assured that fraud is not a concern in counties in Florida which have had decades to clean up their act and dispel any suspicion of fraud. Their incompetence and poor planning is beyond belief.
2
@alan brown If you vote in person and your signature is questioned you can get help and aid at the polling place. If your signature is questioned on a mail-in ballot, you are out of luck. That is a difference you have not addressed. Also, Florida is a swing state with close elections... NY, not so much. But, Florida also has a Republican legislature that funds election equipment and processes and lags well behind what needs to be spent to make voting easier and more secure.
9
Great that your signature is consistent.
But do you really believe that people whose signatures have changed over time should be disenfranchised? What of people who have arthritis, familial tremors, Parkinson’s? Should they be denied their vote because their penmanship is no longer good? What about the fact that our signatures on paper will never match what we scribble with a fingertip on a screen? What about the rest of us who have been voting for 50 years and we no longer sign the same as we did when we first registered to vote?
Voters expect their mail-in ballots will be tallied. Citizens need to know they were — or be given the opportunity to address any objections.
1
There is a bigger issue with voting by mail in Palm Beach County. I lived there and was registered to vote there until I moved in the summer of 2018.
You can't assume that the "original" signature the election supervisor has on file is accurate. The signature it had on file for me on my voter form was not mine. Someone else had apparently placed the signature on the form. So my actual signature would never match. Even though my vote by mail ballot was initially rejected in 2016 and then cured through affidavit, it wasn't until it was rejected again in the spring of 2018 that the election supervisor shared this "original" application form signature with me, and I informed her then that the signature on it was not mine.
Also, on the affidavits you have to obtain and sign to get your vote counted, your signature doesn't have to match anything. Those affidavits are undated and can be emailed back, which means you don't actually have to sign them - you can just paste an image of a signature onto them.
4
After years of working exclusively on a computer I can barely sign my name anymore. Handwriting, like any other physical skill, requires constant practice.
Come on. There is no evidence that people are sending in false votes, but the circumstantial evidence suggests that non-experts are tossing out people's legitimate votes in a crucially close election.
And why, when people cook up conspiracy theories about voter fraud, do they fail to consider the crucial factor required in an meaningful effort: large scale organization? Why the assumption of a spontaneous wave comprised exclusively of the "other" voters?
Hopefully they will follow up and notify all those who cast the ballots in question. The voters did their part, now election officials who rejected these ballots need to do theirs.
4
So few of use write anymore; we type on tablets and laptops. Not just my signature but my handwriting has changed, a lot, from lack of practice. An exact match is unlikely, even when I have signed one check, and then another. This is move to disqualify voters, plain and simple.
4
Even credit cards don't require signatures these days. No matter, let's say they are needed in legal documents. Check your dollar bills, how many Treasury Secretaries throughout history have had different signatures on them or they didn't resemble their real life ones at first glance?
1
Wow. Mine would definitely be rejected because when I went to the DMV most recently it was because I’d just gotten married and changed my name. I had practiced my new signature but it was shaky and the final version I settled on is a bit different than what they have in their list each time I vote in NYC. In Florida that would keep my vote from counting!
4
Why are voters required to sign their ballots? Their identity can be verified via a photo ID such as a driver’s license as is the case here in Virginia. Seems redundant to me. Anyway, since cursive writing training has been gone with the wind for some time now, it won’t be long before no one will be able to sign his/her name in the traditional manner. Most millennials already have trouble using cursive. Their attempts are mostly a combination of printed letters and an occasional letter that vaguely resembles cursive.
8
@Lou Candell. It's not just voter ID's that are being required in certain states, it Government issued photo ID. So if you are not a car owner, and don't have a passport, your are disenfranchised automatically, and this affects specific people in our population. Student ID"s are considered proper either. You may have read about the controversy surrounded the biometric ID cards that were being issued in India? If mandated, it would constitute an invasion of privacy unacceptable to most Americans.
2
It’s time to go where NO one can contest it! We have the technology. Let’s get on with joining the 21st century already!
DNA - DNA - DNA.!
If it’s good enough to identify and convict or exonerate, or to learn all about your family tree then it’s good enough for voter identification! No chance for voter fraud no matter how a republican wants to spin that.
2
I for sure don't want my DNA in a government database. Just insurance companies alone would have massive incentives to hack and find out who is too genetically risky to insure. (Yeah, another reason to sure the pre-existing conditions exclusion never comes back.)
2
Signatures need to match, that's no unreasonable. Same as a bank and same when you want to vote.
Your not being disenfranchised you just need to write like and adult and be sure it's you.
5
@There You need to read the article more carefully. It's difficult to make the electronic tablet signatures consistent. In fact, the poll worker where I lived laughed about it, and was pretty lenient. Of course, I am white and live in a mostly white area.
3
@There, it's not so simple. Signing on a touch screen is completely different from signing with pen and paper on a table. When I voted here in Florida I was told that signing the touch screen with my fingertip was better than using the weird pen, which had a squishy tip the size of a pencil eraser. She was right! I used the intended pen and it was completely hopeless--no gliding pen-like movement was possible. I had to start over and use my fingertip--well you can guess how that went. Signing with a fingertip is much like finger painting - - not very refined! These are not normal conditions for replicating one's signature.
1
@There, there can be no literacy test for voting as that is unconstitutional. Perhaps we should all just make an X. My bank doesn't match signatures, they have documents notarized. Humans rarely even see most of the things signed for banking or purchases.
2
So, Millennials can’t even be bothered to learn how to sign their names? Voting aside, do they expect to go through live signing with emojis?
5
@TW Smith More and more, people can and do. Major credit cards don't bother to ask for signatures now.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
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DoJ uses a Form 361 certification of identity which includes your social security number, your date of birth, and your place of birth to verify identity, signed under penalty of perjury. There is an online version of that which you sign by moving your mouse. Under penalty of perjury means that if you sign it for someone else, it's a federal crime. You won't have people taking a credible risk of federal prosecution to falsify a Form 361. Ask DoJ if they have ever had a fraudulent Form 361 -- I bet never ever! They could use the Form 361s to verify absentee ballots or they could use Form 361s for online voting.
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Commentators always bemoan the low voter turnout, implying that there are lazy citizens who cannot be bothered to vote.This mid term election is exhibit A for why people do not believe that their votes will count.Many states have proved that they are right- their vote will not be counted.This is disgraceful!Why does Congress not establish a " fair voting commission" to give states a blueprint for best practices to assure error free voting.It is totally unjust that some of us have no trouble voting and others have to jump through hoops.Voting should not be as complicated as filling out tax returns!
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@JanetMichael talks about the reasons for "the low voter turnout". Another reason why people don`t vote. In the 2016 election when Clinton won the popular vote by over 3 million votes, a friend said - Why vote? She was so angry that her vote was wasted.
The national Popular Vote bill - if it were passed in every state - would prevent the archaic electoral college from nullifying the votes of the majority of US citizens
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I don't even write my signature on signature pads. I usually draw little landscapes or silly faces. Now, I take it more seriously for voting, but it's a patently absurd method of validating ballots or identity. You have to be some sort of forensic guru to match signatures accurately.
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How about using fingerprints?
Every person who registers to vote provides his/her fingerprint. Then it has to match when s/he votes.
You can then even vote using your mobile phone!
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Why can't Florida operate a fair and honest election? A swamp of muck is really better suited to the Everglades than the electoral process. It's really preposterous that a transparent process of vote gathering and tabulation eludes 'The Sunshine State'. Every vote should count: it's a fundamental principle of our Republic. Signature comparison across multiple platforms is fraught with the regularities. The humidity, the insects and the smarmy politics of Florida really leave need cold.
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Hand writing analysis cannot be relied upon. It seems to me that throwing out votes because of the disparity of a scrawl is just another way to disenfranchise people. Ever try writing on an electronic screen? I would hate to have someone examine mine and try to compare that with a pen and ink signature.
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When I walk into my local firehouse to vote there is a little old lady with a book on a table. She finds my name and I sign the book and then she gives me a ticket and I give it to the lady at the voting both. Worked the exact same way in NY. You can’t vote twice because the space in the book is filled. There is no voting fraud - only voter suppression.
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@Deirdre The same in California. I kept wondering how someone could vote twice with that system. The first person who voted was checked off as voted. So what name would they use? You can't just make one up, it won't be in the voting register. I live in Arizona now and if I recall correctly, they use the same system. I've been voting "mail-in" since 2004.
We live in a world of fingerprint scanning and face recognition. Those two checks together would mean 99.99% certainty of eligible voters and immediate results available with the only security check needed being the programming of the system and the certainty of only one person behind the smart device (+Voting App), but we the people of the USA, of the number one world economy and best technology hub there is, can't get anything done without semaphore flags and carrier pigeons!
It appears that republicans have this phobia that they would lose elections in an electronic world, where everyone was registered but that is not even close to the truth! Plenty of people are republican leaning clear across the board.
Under the best conditions we would have nearly 100% voter turnout and then, finally, politicians would actually have to do the jobs we vote them in for instead of figuring out ways to get less and less people to vote due to registration road blocks and Gerrymandering.
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Naive as I may be, I thought that signing the outside of my ballot, across the seal of the envelope, was a way to ensure that the ballot had not been opened and tampered with before being counted. My signature has changed over the years due to arthritis and forever just scribbling in electronic signature boxes where it doesn't matter what your real signature looks like (or used to). My main concern was that my mail-in ballot was clearly marked "Democrat" something that I didn't think was safe running through the mail system in this querulous time either.
I will be voting in person from now on...
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I voted early. I presented a foto ID--FL drivers license. I signed the electronic pad: it's very slippery, it's a blunt instrument, it is not the same tactile as a piece of paper. No instruction from the clerk to sign exactly as in driver's license. The legitimacy of my ballot I believe should rest on the photo ID and my live appearance. Turning election judges into handwriting experts for an every-other-year event is the height of folly. Absentee ballots, mail-in, are another matter. They should be notarized. It's just that important.
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My signature is never the same because I have a tremor. I have to hold the pen with one hand and steady it with the other hand. I have my significant other address all cards and fill out checks for me.
I know I am not alone with this issue.
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Signatures change when the writing surface angle, or area changes from the norm. The judge should take this into consideration. The system is rigged when there’s a standard set and yet the citizen is not made made aware that there is one being instituted.
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@Luis Gonzalez The judge is probably connected to the rigged system.By the way the Demographics in this country are changing and this is the nonsense that the Republican party has to resort to in order to maintain political power.The end for tolerance of these sorts of ridiculous shenanigans or for the blatant disenfranchisement of people based on race or color is now here. America has changed the Republican Party must deal with it.
In the 1960s when I wrote with pen on lined papers, my signatures was a legible string of letters written in the Palmer method. Decades later, after years of typing on a computer and signing only rare checks, my signature is a mere squiggle.
We need to use modern methods to authenticate remote voters- PIN #s etc come to mind.
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I will be very interested to know, if after a full investigation is launched, will the bulk of the discarded signature ballots be found in one category predominantly? We need this fully investigated and revealed.
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There are plenty of legitimate medical reasons why a signature may change over time. This attempt to reject voters is ageism because it falls the heaviest on older voters. How has the President's signature changed over time? How have elderly members of Congress? Arthritis, medications (especially those which affect the brain), mild strokes, hand injuries and a host of other legitimate conditions may affect how a signature looks as we age.
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@et.al.nyc there are non medical reasons as well. the signature one has leaving HS is rarely identical to the one used 40 years later.
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I have voted by mail in Florida for the past three election cycles. I love it -- I can take my time if the ballot is long, I can research amendments and people in the privacy of my home. But after this debacle, after reading how many ballots were rejected, I'm concerned. There's no reason to think there was any problem with my ballot, but who wants to chance it? This election in Florida was so very critical for us.
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Wouldn`t adopting a national identity card like those used in many European countries help to avoid these problems? In Spain to vote I have to show my card at the voting station. If I want to mail-in my vote, I have to show it to a Post Office official. Verifying signatures becomes irrelevant.
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Signatures change and are an unreliable form of identification. A high tech country like the US should be able to do better, especially since mail-in ballots or voting via internet are the way to go in the future.
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Illinois uses signatures in a voting registration book, which is not a problem for me, but as many comments note, can be a problem for others because of illness or age. Still, Illinois does not have the same issue with voters being rejected. This is a political issue to its core.
There are better methods - fingerprints, iris scans, but such methods cost plenty of money to get up and running. More taxes, anyone?
I would likely have a problem with fingerprinting. As I've gotten older, my fingerprints have become harder to get. The TSA agent could not get a clear set when I applied for pre-check. Imagine an untrained poll worker grappling with that with a few hundred people...
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Me thinks we need to call in the U.N. to oversee our elections to ensure they are fair.
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It is Florida. How hard is it to sign an X?
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With all the Republican's "tricks" to disenfranchise citizens and retain power, the United States is quickly dissolving into a third world country.
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This is unbelievable. It is completely outrageous, in fact. Were voters warned ahead of time that their signature had to match what was 'on file'?
We sign our names constantly on electronic pads with virtually a slash. No one takes any time with it. Very few people nowadays care to ensure their signature is consistent each time they sign something.
If there is no notification that this is an essential element to a valid vote, then it is absolutely illegitimate to disenfranchise these voters for their signature.
This should be obvious to everyone remotely sensible. What is annoying about this article is that it doesn't make clear enough that this is a naked attempt to disenfranchise voters. The basis for throwing out these votes is absolutely ludicrous.
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@Ray Vinmad Especially true when we do not know what our signatures ' on file ' look like.
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@Ray Vinmad: Sure, it's not valid to compare a signature from a pad with one from a ballpoint pen on paper on a level surface. But as long as the state law says that signatures must match, let's not demonize the election workers in the trenches at election time who are charged with implementing that law. The shenanigans happened earlier, when a pad signature was adopted as the reference.
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@John Battin: Of course you don't get to see your reference signature. If you just have to imitate it, that's an invitation to fraud.
Denying someone due to a signature match is a new Jim Crow. Literacy was used to deny citizens their voting rights while for centuries, what mattered was making your mark such as an X. Just yesterday I had to use a digital signature and my squiggle on any electronic signature pad would never be legible much less match some other signature. People get ill, they are rushed, they are unused to signing documents.
Republicans are doing everything possible to suppress votes. I appreciate the federal judges stepping in but making the process into a gauntlet is really Jim Crow all over again. Shame on the entire Republican Party. Bigots, cheats, and bullies.
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@smb. So, only Democrats can’t sign their names?
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@TW Smith Obviously, it's not true that only Democrats can't sign their names. The article notes that a study showed signature matching disproportionally impacts young voters, who more often vote Democrat. Further, it's presumably easy enough to disqualify voters from one party in some jurisdictions when a signature on a mail-in ballot is compared to a signature on a registration that indicates party affiliation. For all the reasons outlined in the article, no vote should be thrown out based on a signature.
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@TW Smith
The point is that only Republicans are eager to challenge the validity of a vote based on the signature and will use that to target likely Democratic voters.
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Lets be serious, signatures need to match. That is not new.
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Try matching your past signatures when you have a tremor.
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@Joe Yoh Match an electronic screen signature? Joe, you're not serious!
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And by the way, hearing republicans cry about democrats trying to steal a Florida election is particularly aggravating after they stole the 2000 presidential election there, which they "won" by only one vote in the Supreme Court. A truly disastrous result for our country and the middle east.
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A reference to the other states that use signature verification and the rejection rates as compared to Florida would have been useful. Given almost 10 million votes were cast , the statistical model of rejected ballots would be better illustrated by a comparison to other less contentious elections. Is the rejection higher because of the extra scrutiny?
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I worked the polls as a clerk checking signatures. Almost no one was able to write clearly on the electronic screens. Some people were unfamiliar and afraid of the screen, some just dashed it off like they do most places they sign this way, some people's finger didn't register on the screen and required a stylus, and so on. It became humorous as the day went on and we grew tired to see how different signatures actually were from the "base" signature on their file. Signature ID is an idea whose time has come and gone.
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But the law still requires poll workers to match the signature from the ballot to what’s on file. You say that they idea has come and gone, but the law doesn’t reflect that. Absent a change, it still has to be followed, as the judge rightfully declared.
Exact perfect matches are impossible and that’s not what poll workers look for. They look for a resemblance. But it’s impossible to declare a match with a scrawl and a straight line. The point is to confirm that the voter has voted their own ballot and is who they say they are. Without a photo ID or fingerprint or retinal scan every time you vote, a person’s real signature, not a casual scrawl, seems like the easiest and most efficient and effective way to accomplish that. The laws were written when the concept of a legal signature, such as what you sign your drivers license with, actually meant something.
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@NYC Traveler, Photo ID is required in our state. I agree that the law needs to change. Matching a signature with one from some other moment in time is worthless.
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@NYC Traveler
The law needs to be changed to match reality.
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Trying to sign anything on a touchscreen is trash, 90% of the time the screens unresponsive or you're using your finger. Of course Republicans are going to try and use such a ridiculous system to "verify" people's identities.
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Since I registered to vote in NY 40 years ago, I've developed an essential tremor and have a difficult time writing. My signature on voting records is my full name. Now the best I can do is my initials. My vote is not questioned.
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I have a degenerative illness, my signature changes every day tiny bit.
Over the years it has significantly changed. I carry indisputable, valid identification.
A few years ago, the GOP & their Candidate filed a lawsuit asking that all similar handwriting at a precinct in an Election with a Write-In Campaign be tossed! Not counted!
Had they been successful, People disabilities, who like me, had requested assistance Writing legibly, Would’ve been successfully disenfranchised.
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@Sleeping Lady
You are much more abled than the dotard occupying the Oval Office of our White House.
We are all differently abled by our nature and nurture.
You are woke my beloved beautiful sister.
"Stay woke. Don't let them catch you sleeping." Childish Gambino
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@Sleeping Lady
Was your voted ever not counted?
If you go to the poll station and show proper ID, they will let you vote.
How would you feel that someone else voted for you?
A few elections back.. After taking my absentee ballot to the supervisor of elections office in North Palm Beach County before traveling abroad. I discovered that my signature was no longer acceptable. It no longer matched the scanned document on my 2O year old voter registration card. They verified my identity in person through my drivers license. Even then I had to have a good match with the first letter of my first and last name. Since then I only vote in person on election day or in person with early voting. My signature has changed drastically in a world where we no longer write checks or sign our signature to correspondence.
It Is time for a more 21st century method of voting with Electronic fingerprint ora biometric form of remote digital scanning.
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@Sailorgirl
Electronic fingerprints can be tricky for older people. When I had to obtain a Federal security clearance at the age of 69 I found that the computerized scanner could not read my fingerprints. The local Sheriff’s office had a form letter to submit to the FBI certifying this reason for the lack of prints. This was not the first time they had run into this problem with older people. I subsequently learned that a relative had the same problem with her prints when she was renewing her ID in Hong Kong.
Apparently a lifetime of doing manual labor (or housework in the case of women) wears away the prints. Advocates of their introduction need to be aware of this. [Apple devices don’t do any better than the Sheriff’s office.]
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@Sailorgirl
Next time take your pet Al E. Gator to the polls with you. He can make them an offer they can't refuse. Please use your smart phone to film a record.
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@Sailorgirl
Perhaps Russian military intelligence aka GRU or Russian domestic intelligence aka FSB or Russian foreign intelligence aka SVR will volunteer to help us out. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is Trump's dummy pawn pet puppet master.
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This looks like another way to lower the total number of votes, which usually hurts democratic candidates. What is the standard? What are the conditions under which the two signatures were made? Are they comparable? Is there any way to know? How much time has passed between the signatures? Are there medical issues involved? There are too many variables to account for. And who is applying the judgement?
On the face of it, it screams chicanery being used to advantage the republicans.
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@Syd
If they are serious about voting, then show up to the poll and present and ID if their signature doesn't match.
For the ballots that were "thrown out", were they investigated for fraud?
Another tool in the voter suppression kit. GOP knows they can not win in fair elections, so stack the deck any way they can.
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Comparing a pen and ink signature to one on an electronic signature pad is fundamentally flawed. They're different physical mediums, and there's absolutely zero evidence that it's possible to reconcile the two. The notion that one's civil rights can be legally dependent on such an inherently faulty theory is absurd. The courts should categorically reject this as a basis for stripping voters of their most essential right.
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When I saw my signature that had been written on a piece of paper was compared to an electronic signature, it made me mad. I’m lucky they allowed my vote. As a psychologist, I first know that authentic signatures are always a little different. Exact ones can sometimes be a sign of a fraud. Second, electronic signatures are no comparison to anything because it depends on the quality of the screen and the stylus. Anyone appealing their ruling or the law should consider hiring an expert in handwriting or signatures as a witness.
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@The Way It Is and Will Be ~ Vote me as one who deliberately scribbles on electronic pads because impossible is an accurate word to describe even a concerted effort at forming letters on a pad. And how about the time involved to hand write with a stylus?
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@The Way It Is and Will Be
Yes but 63 million Americans including 58% of the white voting majority went with Trump in 2016.
The courts once found enslavement and separate and unequal while black African in America legal.
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My signature is not consistent. It can vary if I'm tired or rushed or in a hurry. This is just another excuse to disenfranchise voters.
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Politicians are interested in rules that will increase their chances of winning. For example, long voter lines disadvantage the side whose voters have more trouble with standing in long lines, either because they are working or because they have physical disabilities. Lines that are longer in districts where the majority historically vote in a certain way, and have a history of being longer, are one of the most popular legal ways to rig the vote.
In some parts of the country where voting by certain sorts of people was discouraged as a matter of formal or informal public policy, voters on the other side expect elections to be so rigged, are not troubled by it, and know what to say to "outsiders" about it. Such people will experience attempts at fairness as having something rammed down their throats, and will be very upset.
Ultimately the fairness of elections depends on a clear desire by a substantial majority that the election be fair even if their side loses. The way to ensure election fairness is to get people to value fairness over winning, and in many parts of the country this is experienced as an attack on their way of life, and rightly so, because it is. The situation was and is clearest in the South.
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As I signed my name to vote in the primary, I noted that my signature looked quite different from my previous one. It used to be be the beginning of my name and then a scribble. Now, I’ve taken to printing my first and middle initial with a more readable last name. My vote wasn’t invalidated because I don’t live in a state bent on disenfranchising voters.
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@Orange Nightmare Exactly. This is nothing more than an attempt to disenfranchise. It is very similar to Jim Crow laws in that some completely irrelevant factor is raised in order to ensure that votes aren't counted.
One more attack on democracy by the GOP.
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