Luke Ford

From the Los Angeles Times Oct. 28, 2020:

Mail-in ballots are pouring in by the millions to election offices across the country, getting stacked and prepared for processing. But before the count comes the signature test.

Election workers eyeball voter signatures on ballots one by one, comparing the loop of an “L” or the squiggle of an “S” against other samples of that person’s writing.

When performed by professionals in criminal cases or legal proceedings, signature verification can take hours. But election employees in many states must do the job in as little as five seconds.

In an election marked by uncertainty amid the pandemic, the signature verification process represents one of the biggest unknowns: whether a system riddled with vulnerabilities will work on such a massive scale.

In 2016, mismatched signatures were the most common reason that mail ballots were rejected, according to federal officials. With record numbers of people voting by mail this cycle, ballots thrown out for signature problems and other issues have the potential to decide races where the margin of victory is slim.

From Ballotpedia:

* All 50 states require a valid signature for an absentee/mail-in ballot to be counted. According to The New York Times, 32 states use the signature provided with a voter’s absentee/mail-in ballot to verify his or her identity by comparing it with the signature on file (e.g., the signature on a driver’s license or voter registration application). Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia practice signature matching and allow voters to remedy mismatches. Another four states practice signature matching, but do not allow voters to remedy mismatches. Eighteen states either do not have signature matching laws or do not practice signature matching on a regular basis.[1]

Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, told The New York Times that signature matching “is the best way to strike a balance between security, transparency, and accessibility for voters” when done properly, including a process to fix signature mismatches. Mark Gaber, the director of trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, said that signature matching was problematic, with courts having found “that there’s a high risk of wrongly being identified as not having signed your ballot.”

* Most states have laws allowing someone other than a voter to return the voter’s absentee/mail-in ballot. These laws, referred to as ballot collection or ballot harvesting laws, vary by state. As of August 2020, 24 states and the District of Columbia permitted someone chosen by the voter to return the ballot on the voter’s behalf in most cases. Twelve states specified who may return ballots (i.e., household members, caregivers, and/or family members) in most cases. One state explicitly allowed only the voter to return his or her ballot. Thirteen states did not specify whether someone may return another’s ballot.

From Forbes.com Nov. 10, 2020:

President Donald Trump, during an address to the nation on Thursday, attempted to delegitimize and attack the integrity of the 2020 U.S. election by falsely asserting that election officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan tried to ban Republican observers from polling stations, an accusation for which he provided no evidence.

“In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gone to the state Supreme Court to try and ban our election observers,” Trump declared Thursday evening, adding, “They don’t want anybody watching them as they count the ballots.”

This is untrue, as there is zero evidence of Democrats attempting to ban Republican representatives from observing the counting of votes.

The president is seemingly referring to a case adjudicated Thursday morning in which the Trump campaign was requesting closer observation of the ballot canvassing process in Pennsylvania, but legitimate poll watchers were never systemically barred from any location.

New York Times reports Nov. 7, 2020:

On Twitter and in interviews, President Trump and his supporters have alleged that his campaign observers were blocked from ballot-counting rooms, hindering their ability to witness and report several instances of what the Trump campaign has baselessly claimed was widespread election fraud that has marred the results.

“THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS,” Mr. Trump alleged in a tweet on Saturday. “BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.”

The charge was without any basis in fact, and was, in reality, contradicted by several of Mr. Trump’s own legal filings.

In cases that his campaign brought in Nevada and Pennsylvania — one dismissed, the other pending — it acknowledged that its observers were indeed present in the counting rooms. His lawyers were, rather, asking the courts to force election officials to allow Mr. Trump’s observers to get even closer views of the counting activity.

A judge in the Nevada case dismissed the bid, ruling that Mr. Trump’s lawyers “failed to prove” that local election officials “interfered with any right they or anyone else has an observer.” In the Philadelphia case, the Trump campaign succeeded in forcing city elections officials to allow observers to be up to six feet from counting tables, as opposed to the roughly 20-foot observation line officials had previously set. But during a hearing for a federal version of that suit on Thursday, Judge Paul Diamond of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania pressed a lawyer for Mr. Trump on whether the campaign’s observers did, in fact, have access to the facility. The lawyer said, grudgingly, that there were “a nonzero number” of people in the room. (In the interest of expediting the case, Judge Diamond pushed the Philadelphia board to agree to an expanded number of observers.)

A case the Trump campaign brought in Chatham County, Ga., was, in fact, based on a Trump observer’s allegation that he had seen workers count some 53 ballots that weren’t valid — a thin charge that the observer could not support in court; the judge threw out the suit on Thursday.

Mr. Trump and his allies have seized on photographs of election workers at one point using cardboard to block windows of a large counting room inside the TFC Center in Detroit, alleging that workers there were covering up nefarious activity.

In fact, The Detroit Free Press reported, the cardboard was meant to block the view of boisterous protesters outside the room who were trying to photograph and video the workers handling ballots with sensitive personal information about voter preferences. At the time, The Free Press reported, there were 134 Republican observers inside the counting area, along with a similar number of Democratic observers.

From the AP, Nov. 14, 2020:

President Donald Trump’s legal allies have launched a flurry of lawsuits arguing that widespread fraud could have been committed because its poll watchers didn’t get proper access to the voting process. Most of those lawsuits have been dismissed over lack of evidence of election fraud.

Trump has tried to argue that there is a link between some of the complaints of partisan poll watchers and the results of the election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. But there has been no credible information to validate his assertions. In fact, both state and federal officials have praised the 2020 election as safe and secure.

WHAT IS A POLL WATCHER?

A poll watcher is a partisan appointee who monitors voting or ballot counting to help ensure their party gets a fair shot. They are not supposed to interfere in the electoral process, except to report issues to party officials or polling place authorities, and are typically required to register in advance with the local election office.

Tasked this year with monitoring a record number of mail ballots, poll watchers are designated by a political party or campaign to report any concerns they may have. With a few reports of overly aggressive poll watchers, election officials said they were carefully balancing access with the need to minimize disruptions and social distance concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. In many places, they were ordered to stand 6 feet away.

Monitoring polling places and election offices is allowed in most states, but rules vary and there are certain limits to avoid any harassment or intimidation.

WERE TRUMP’S POLL WATCHERS DENIED ACCESS?

The Trump campaign said from the beginning that Republican poll watchers were being improperly denied access to observe the counting of ballots. Not so, countered election officials in key battleground states, who said rules were being followed and they were committed to transparency.

In Pennsylvania, for example, state election officials said poll watchers were certified in every county. Republican lawyers acknowledged in court that they had observers watching polls and mail-in ballots being processed.

In Michigan, a Trump campaign lawsuit included assertions from their observers that poll workers rolled their eyes when viewing votes for Trump, wore masks or clothing supporting the Black Lives Matter movement or appeared to double-count ballots. Other lawsuits claimed poll watchers were temporarily denied access in some locations, but there has been no evidence to back it up. Nor was there evidence of votes being miscounted out of political bias. And most of the litigation alleging this has been dismissed.