Photo by Jim Small /Arizona Mirror
By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
Prosecutorial agencies would have the opportunity to investigate possible voter fraud when county election officials can’t verify the signatures on early ballots, under legislation approved by House Republicans.
The House of Representatives on Monday approved an amendment to Senate Bill 1241 that would require county election officials to send information about mismatched signatures to county attorneys or the Attorney General’s Office for possible investigation. The bill passed on a party-line 31-29 vote.
Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the amendment, called it a tool to combat possible voter fraud.
When a voter casts an early ballot, the option preferred by the overwhelming majority of Arizona voters, they sign their names on the envelopes they use to transmit their ballots to election officials. Election workers compare the signatures to the signatures on file for those voters to confirm their identities. If the signatures don’t match, they attempt to contact the voters to give them an opportunity to “cure” their ballots.
When signatures don’t match and election workers can’t reach the voters, they simply disregard the ballots and don’t count them. According to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 1,894 ballots were rejected in the 2020 general election in Arizona because election workers were unable to verify the signatures.
Kavanagh said it’s concerning that no one follows up on ballots with signatures that can’t be verified. Most are probably from legitimate voters, he said, but some are certainly fraudulent. And no one in Arizona is investigating them, he said.
