GOP plan could make NC ‘the strictest state’ for absentee voting. How would it work?

As part of a major elections overhaul package, GOP leaders want new software to check that voters’ signatures on absentee ballots match those on file with the state.

The requirement, combined with North Carolina’s already-rigorous mail-in voting safeguards and the introduction of photo ID, “would make us one of — if not the — strictest state” for absentee ballots, according to one state senator.

“It does make us an extreme outlier when it comes to just overkill,” Democratic Sen. Lisa Grafstein, a vocal opponent of the measure, told The News & Observer.

North Carolina is already one of few states that require two witness signatures or a notary public for an absentee ballot. Requiring two witness signatures and signature verification would be an entirely unique absentee ballot process — one that opponents say would create unnecessary challenges for voters.

The bill’s Republican sponsors say this measure, among others, would increase voters’ trust in elections.

“Signature verification is a commonsense election security measure that more than half of the states have already implemented,” Sen. Warren Daniel said in an email to The News & Observer. “It’s time that North Carolina does the same.”

Many key details about the plan have yet to be laid out, such as whether human workers would double-check ballots rejected by matching software or if a voter would have a chance to “cure” their ballot if their signature isn’t verified.

Before passing the plan, Senate Republicans approved an amendment from a Democratic senator to create a pilot program for signature verification in the 2024 primaries.

“If the signature verification requirement and accompanying pilot program in Senate Bill 747 become law, I anticipate the legislature and the State Board of Elections working together to determine the best way to implement the verification process for the 2024 general election,” Daniel said. “The purpose of the pilot program, and the required report to the General Assembly, is to study the program on a smaller scale before going live statewide.”

Why does the GOP want signature verification?

Since the 2020 elections, when former President Donald Trump spread false conspiracy theories claiming massive voter fraud, Republicans across the country have pushed to tighten election laws.

Prior to filing their most recent election law proposals, GOP leaders met with Cleta Mitchell, the leader of a national “election integrity” group advocating stricter voting procedures. Mitchell is perhaps best known for participating in the phone call in which Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to win.

Though many of the changes Republicans are pursuing were recommended by Mitchell’s group, the Election Integrity Network, signature verification was not one of its top priorities.

Jim Womack, head of the North Carolina chapter of EIN, said his group supports the proposal, but said that the technology is “questionable sometimes.” He also noted that signature-matching requirements often face legal challenges.

In Washington State, a coalition of voters sued to overturn the state’s signature verification requirement after an audit found that Black, Native American, Asian and Latino voters had their ballots rejected at much higher rates than white voters.

Criticisms of signature verification

Some lawmakers questioned if signature verification could lead to valid votes being thrown out among people whose signatures are likely to change, such as elderly or disabled voters.

“It just really has the potential to large-scale disenfranchise a bunch of people,” Grafstein said.

Progressive groups have also noted that in several states that have signature matching, non-white voters have had their ballots rejected at higher rates.

“Is this about integrity in elections?” Carolyn Smith, policy director for Democracy NC, said. “... Or is this a way to just block us from voting?”

In Florida, where signature verification is required, twice as many mail-in ballots from Black and Hispanic voters were thrown out compared to white voters in 2020. While some of these came from invalid signatures, the most common issue was a missing signature, according to The Washington Post.

The requirement for signature verification comes alongside various other election changes in SB 747, which would also shorten the deadline for receiving absentee ballots, ban private money for election administration and force most voters using same-day registration to cast a provisional ballot.

How would it work?

Implementing signature verification would likely require millions of dollars of investment in software and machinery to implement, and many questions remain about how exactly the verification process would play out.

The State Board of Elections is considering contracting with a company called Runbeck Election Services to secure the necessary software and machines to verify signatures. Paul Cox, general counsel for the board, said in an email that the total cost to implement the measures in every county would be $16.5 million in the first year, followed by another $3.5 million to $4 million every following year.

Without a final bill enacted, though, the board can’t make any binding decisions. The General Assembly also has not guaranteed that the board would receive any extra funds to facilitate the myriad election changes legislators are proposing.

The original draft of the bill included only three lines on signature verification, requiring county boards to use software to do it but not specifying a timeline, procedure or what company to use.

Democrats honed in on this provision, questioning how the state could feasibly implement signature verification and where the funds would come from.

“It sounds like it’s something maybe that we could automate and there would be no questions about,” Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, said at a committee hearing on the bill. “But if you dig in at all, you know that it’s not that easy.”

When the bill came before the Senate, Republicans supported an amendment from Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Mecklenburg Democrat, creating a pilot program for signature verification in the 2024 primaries.

Under the amended bill, which passed the Senate, 10 counties would be selected to participate in the pilot and report on the program’s successes and failures to the State Board of Elections. No ballots would be rejected for failing signature verification during the pilot program.

The bill still has to go through the House, though, where further changes could be made.

How does it work in other states?

There are 27 states that require some method of signature verification on absentee ballots, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Some states have election workers compare signatures with their own eyes, often giving them special training on how to tell if a signature is authentic. Others use digital software to check signatures — but often have some form of human backup.

Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, which provides professional election administration assistance, said most signature verification is done by human evaluation.

Morrell said that, where digital verification is used, it usually only recognizes perfect signature matches and is used for initial evaluations.

“It gets all of the easy matches out of the way so that humans can look at the rest,” she said in an email to The N&O.

Within states, though, signature verification isn’t always a uniform process.

In the 2020 elections, at least eight states started using a software company called Parascript to match signatures digitally. However, not every county chose to use the software the same way, a Reuters analysis found. In Colorado, some counties put half of all ballots through the technology while others only did so for 20%.

Counties in the analysis said that every signature rejected by the software was double-checked by a human. No such requirement is currently included in North Carolina’s proposal.

Out of the 27 states that check signatures, 24 require that voters be notified if their signature was rejected and lay out a process for them to “cure” their ballot.

In Florida, voters with missing or invalid signatures are notified by county election workers and given until the second day after the election to return an affidavit correcting their ballot.

Colorado requires three election judges not all of the same party to agree that a signature doesn’t match in order to reject an absentee ballot. Even then, the voter is notified and allowed to fill out a form potentially curing their ballot.

North Carolina’s signature verification bill does not yet lay out any process for curing invalidated ballots.

What’s next?

SB 747 still has to go through a variety of House committees, which could make changes to the bill. Upon passing both chambers, the bill would likely be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, prompting an almost certain override by the legislature’s Republican supermajority.