A lawsuit making its way through Yavapai County could potentially impact thousands of Arizona voters, especially those living in the state for a long time.
The lawsuit seeks to limit the signatures counties can use to verify an early ballot to only the voter registration form. A motion to dismiss by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was denied by the judge who called the language in the statute that governs signature comparisons “clear and unambiguous.”
Executive Director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission and attorney Tom Collins told ABC 15 that the process of verifying signatures used by Arizona’s counties includes many more signatures.
“When you sign and send back your ballot, as the vast majority of voters in Arizona do, that signature is checked against a voter file that includes things like all your other signatures and prior ballots, as well as your original registration,” Collins said.
Fontes had argued the legislature changed the wording of the law in 2018 from “registration form” to “registration record” with the intent of including the documents on file with a county recorder. Napper rejected this argument stating that the inclusion of the word “registration” still limits comparison to registration forms.
While the judge’s dismissal is not a final order, any ruling would only impact Yavapai County initially. The law is statewide, however, meaning any ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would have to be addressed by the remaining fourteen counties. An analysis of a recent statewide voter file shows nearly 40% of registration forms, and therefore likely signatures, are over 14 years old. Sixteen percent of voters have a registration form on file over 24 years old. This group would be most impacted by any change as signatures tend to change over time.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said if the law were to change it would result in a lot more work for his office.
“If I had to guess I would say it would result in a lot more curing, meaning we would need to contact the voters and say, hey, your signature doesn’t look like the now only one signature that we have on file for you, that might be from forty of fifty years ago,” Richer said.
Richer also speculated a higher number of ballots being rejected for old or digitized MVD signatures will ultimately lead to a higher rate of legally cast ballots being rejected.
Many voters have more recent signatures on file.
In Maricopa County, 82% of people who cast ballots in the November 2022 election had a signature to compare to from the 2020 General Election. More than half had a signature from the 2022 primary election. About 28% had an additional signature from the August 2020 primary.
The next hearing in the lawsuit is later this month. Both parties are expected to appeal the final ruling.
