The process of matching a voter’s signature on a ballot or ballot application against the signature provided on a voter’s initial registration will continue for the November election. An injunction that was filed to remedy that process has been denied by a federal court. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
The ACLU of Ohio’s Freda Levenson says the larger case to get rid of signature matching is still alive but the injunction her group sought for this election isn’t. She says signatures from the same person can be different depending on the circumstances or age.
“What appears to an elections official to be a mismatch is, in most cases, 97% of the time, is actually a valid signature by the voter.”
The ACLU had asked for an order to require boards of elections to notify, by email or a phone call, voters flagged for signature mismatches. She says the ACLU will collect more evidence, including from this election, to make their case to strike signature matching altogether.
