State Law Says Ballot Signatures Must Be Compared to Voter’s Registration Record

A practice used by some, if not all, Arizona counties to verify signatures on early ballots may be illegal.

And that could result in election officials across the state have to change their procedures – and potentially result in more signatures on ballot envelopes being questioned.

Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper, a Republican, said state law is “clear and unambiguous” that election officials must compare the signatures on the envelopes with the voter’s actual registration record. And that, he said, consists only of the document signed when a person first registered along with subsequent changes for things like altering party affiliation.

And what that means, the judge said, is it is illegal for county election officials to instead use other documents to determine if the signature on that ballot envelope is correct and should be accepted. (Excerpt from Arizona Capital Times.)