Greater than a month after voting by mail within the presidential election, South Los Angeles resident Taylor Johnson discovered that his vote had not been counted as a result of election staff had taken situation with the best way he signed his title on the poll envelope.
The elections workplace informed Johnson that his poll signature didn’t match one other signature that they had on file. Johnson wasn’t certain which signature that was, however he knew it could have seemed completely different: After printing his title for years, he perfected his cursive signature only some months in the past.
“Most people my age just kind of scribble,” stated Johnson, 20, who works as an administrative assistant at a medical imaging clinic.
For younger Individuals who not often signal something past a paper receipt or a espresso store iPad, a written signature simply doesn’t imply a lot anymore — besides when voting by mail, when a signature is vital to figuring out whether or not a mail poll is counted.
In California, voters youthful than 25 made up 10% of the November voters, however had practically 3 in 10 of the ballots put aside for signature points, in keeping with an evaluation by the voter information agency Political Information Inc. Greater than half of the state’s ballots with signature points have been from voters youthful than 35.
California usually verifies the identities of mail voters via their signatures. As many as three elections staff scrutinize every poll envelope to make sure the signature matches the voter’s registration paperwork or driver’s license, and put aside envelopes with lacking or mismatched signatures.
Election officers are required to inform these voters and provides them a chance to repair the error.
Within the November election, practically 200,000 ballots have been flagged for signature points throughout California’s 58 counties. Practically 6 in 10 have been ultimately counted via a course of often known as “curing,” by which a voter can fill out a kind to attest that the flawed poll was theirs, whereas greater than 83,000 weren’t counted.
In a survey of voters whose ballots have been flagged due to signature issues, 40% of respondents stated their signature seemed completely different than it used to, one other 40% stated they used a sloppy, incomplete or informal signature, “like one I use signing a restaurant bill,” and 12% stated they forgot to signal the envelope totally.
“When you’re dealing with a state with 22 million voters, and 16 million sending their ballots in with signatures, there’s a multitude of ways that some little nonsensical thing can create a problem,” stated Paul Mitchell, a vice chairman at PDI who performed the survey.
Orange County registrar of voters Bob Web page advisable that voters have a look at the signature on their driver’s license earlier than signing their ballots and will take into account sending in a brand new registration kind if their signature has modified. He stated Orange County plans to ship varieties to 12,000 voters in hopes of getting a brand new signature on file.
“We know that signatures change over time,” Web page stated. “And we know that the way people sign at the little pad with their finger at the DMV is not how they really sign their names.”
Mitchell’s evaluation discovered that within the state’s six best congressional races, 85% of Republicans and Democrats whose ballots have been flagged for signature points have been in a position to remedy their ballots and have their votes counted, a 25-point bounce over the statewide averages.
The Republican and Democratic events mounted armies of volunteers and employees members to go door to door in probably the most aggressive U.S. Home of Representatives districts.
Within the Central Valley, the place Democrat Adam Grey narrowly bested GOP Rep. John Duarte, the variety of ballots cured by Democrats and Republicans far outstripped the 187-vote margin of the race.
Marketing campaign volunteers and staff went door to door within the districts, attempting to speak to voters in particular person and explaining how you can full the poll paperwork, in some circumstances serving to them navigate scanning in, printing out and returning the varieties.
Mitchell discovered that voters with no social gathering choice had a far decrease fee of return than voters affiliated with the Republican and Democratic events in aggressive swing districts, suggesting that every social gathering was specializing in their most loyal voters first.
In much less aggressive districts, voters have been extra on their very own.
Cassidy Crotwell, 22, registered to vote throughout an economics class in her senior yr at El Toro Excessive College in Orange County. Everybody within the class registered on their telephones, she stated, and he or she didn’t signal something.
Crotwell discovered concerning the situation along with her November poll signature via a textual content message from the Orange County Registrar’s workplace. Republican Rep. Younger Kim, who represents her Congressional district, simply received reelection, and neither social gathering mounted a significant curing operation there; no different teams or campaigns contacted Crotwell, she stated.
She assumed the elections workplace had a signature on file from when she acquired her driver’s license at age 16, however her signature is “a little more defined now,” she stated — the results of a job in human assets the place she indicators quite a lot of paperwork. She didn’t find yourself fixing her poll however plans to replace her signature the following time she goes to the DMV.
Johnson, the South L.A. voter, didn’t repair his poll, both. By the point he discovered his vote hadn’t been counted, the presidential election had been over for weeks.
Within the 2026 midterms, Johnson stated, he’s going to vote in particular person — no signature required.
