Does your vote count in Florida? It might depend on your signature.

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/does-your-vote-count-in-florida-it-might-depend-on-your-signature/2018/11/14/7625251a-e762-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html

Does your vote count in Florida? It might depend on your signature.
By Amy Gardner
November 14 at 5:10 PM

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It’s the hanging chad of 2018: the mismatched signature.

Eighteen years ago, the last time the nation watched a recount unfold, election officials studied bits of paper dangling from punched ballots to glean voter intent — and to determine whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would be the next president.

This year, they are studying how voters loop their Hs.

A federal judge in Tallahassee began hearing arguments Wednesday about whether election officials may toss 4,000 ballots with signatures that don’t match existing voter records. The suit was brought by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is hoping to overtake Republican Gov. Rick Scott in a statewide recount. It is one of many lawsuits flying in state and federal court in the closely watched Senate race.

Voter signatures have taken on outsize importance because they are typically required on absentee and mail-in ballots, which more and more Americans are using to vote. As Republicans and Democrats spar over which ballots should count in unresolved elections in Florida and Georgia, many of their disputes have centered on whether to accept ballots where the signature doesn’t match.

The issue is acute in close races where absentee ballots could sway the outcome — and in states where voting by mail has exploded without a standardized system for checking the validity of a signature, the most common way to verify that a mail-in ballot is legal.

All of it has created an uproar among voting-rights advocates, who say that untrained election workers are tossing eligible ballots, often with no chance for the voter to object or fix the ballot.

“I had zero recourse here,” said Patrick Murphy, a former Democratic congressman from Palm Beach who learned after the election that his absentee ballot had been rejected because of a mismatched signature — too late for him to do anything about it.

Murphy, 35, said he’s had the same signature since he got his driver’s license at 16, so he thinks it’s ridiculous that his ballot was tossed. “In elections, especially in Florida, that are within .5 percent or .25 percent, to have nonexperts be deciding this, seems a little silly to me,” he said.

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[voteearlyvoteoften]

1. I decided to early vote instead of mail

For exactly that reason.

[mitch96]

2. Another reason not to vote by mail...

When I voted in person, they had me sign, then looked at the signature on my drivers license and then looked at me.. Ok, your you..... go vote..
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