Voter signature audit inGeorgia may validate result or find fraud

Assembled in ATLANTA – teams at folding tables, GBI agents and state election investigators this pastweek scrutinized voter signatures onabsenteeballotenvelopes, a major test of their legitimacy.

A small number of mismatched signatures would discredit suspicions from President Donald Trump and election skeptics who claim the system for verifying voter identity allows rampant fraud. Significant mismatches would expose flaws in the ballot verification process.

Theunprecedentedreview ofabsenteeballots, scheduled to be finished this week, is comparing signaturesonballot envelopes with their signatures on file. Fifty investigators areworking to examine a 15,000-ballot sample of the nearly 150,000 absentee ballots returned in Cobb County.

The GBI often reviews signatures in cases involving forgery or other financial crimes, but nothing as broad as the current audit of ballot envelope signatures, said Bahan Rich, GBI special agent in charge of theAtlanta regional office.

“This isonamuch grander scale than anythingwe have ever done before or been involved in,” Rich said.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ordered the audit after pressure from Trump and Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly. The audit won’t change the results of the election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by about 12,000 votes.

Wordof the signature audit reached White House chief of staffMarkMeadows, who made a surprise visit to the Cobb County Civic Center last week to ask questions about the process, then left a few minutes later.

Raffensperger said the signature reviewwould restore confidence in elections. But thathopeiscontingentonthe audit validating the absentee ballot signature process — and on the public trusting its results.

“I can’t speak to what the results will be, but at the end of the day, the fact thatwe’re even doing this should give people confidence that we are looking intoevery claim,” Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said.

Raffenspergerlaunchedthe Cobb signature audit based on a complaint that signatures weren’t adequately checked, andheplans a statewide review of counties’ signature match policies and procedures.

There’s no specific allegation of widespread absentee ballot fraud involving forged signatures.

Signature matching is an inexact science, leading to suspicions fromRepublicans about illegal ballots and from Democrats about overzealous enforcement that rejects legitimate votes.

“Signaturesdochangeover time. We’re looking for consistencyandshapesof letters. We’re looking for slants in one direction or the other,” Rich said. “The devil is in the details.”

No matter the outcome, the auditwon’t settledebates about the veracity of absentee ballots.

Several Republicans, includingRaffensperger, have called for an ID requirement thatwould replace signature matching. Democratsoppose requirements such as a copy of photo ID, which would create difficulties for voters who aren’t tech-savvy or lack access to a copy machine.

“Signature matching is something where there’s a lot of local discretion,” said MichaelMcDonald, whoruns the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida. “There’s no uniform standard for what constitutes a matched signature.”

ElectionworkersinGeorgia check signaturesonabsentee ballot applications aswell as signaturesonabsentee ballot envelopes. Theycomparesignatures to records including voters’ original registration documents, driver’s licenses and other election files.

“The hope I have is that it will show that our election workers have worked diligently and hard through this entire election, that they have been checking signatures as ballots are received and they’ve beenmatched,” saidAklimaKhondoker, Georgia

director for All Voting is Local, an organization that advocates for voting access.

The rate of ballots rejected because of signature problems in Georgia has varied between 0.1% and 0.4% in severalmajor elections over the past fouryears, according to state election data.

Electionworkers rejected similar percentages of absentee ballots because of mismatched or missing signatures in the 2020 and 2018 general elections. Rejection rates were slightly higher in the 2016 general election, this year’s primary, and in theU.S. Senate runoffs so far.

Under state law, officials must promptly notify voters about problems with their absentee ballots and give them until three days after electionday tocorrect issues.

Strict signature matching carries a risk of inadvertently rejecting legitimate ballots, said Alex Street, a political science professor at Carroll College inHelena, Montana. Signatures change as people age, and even signature experts make mistakes.

“I do worry that these signature verifications are wrongfully rejecting quite a lot of signatures for every one they do correctly flag,” Street said.

His researchand statistical analysisbackupthatconcern. Election officials incorrectly reject at least 30 ballots for every one that was actually signed by someone other than the voter, according to Street’s estimates.