VoteBeat/AZ Mirror: Three seconds to spot fraud? Testing Arizona’s ballot signature checking process.

VoteBeat/AZ Mirror: Three seconds to spot fraud? Testing Arizona’s ballot signature checking process.

The potential change in process to come from this lawsuit worries Jenny Guzman, the program director for Common Cause Arizona, which advocates for voter rights. The organization isn’t sure signature verification is the best way to verify a ballot, but wants to make sure that officials have a large database to work from if this is the method they are using, she told me. Officials should also be attempting to contact voters whose signature is being questioned, Guzman said, which happens in Arizona under state law but doesn’t happen in every state. “Signatures should be allowed to change,” she told me. “It shouldn’t cause your ballot to be rejected.” Guzman said Common Cause Arizona prefers signature verification over these other methods. Guzman said her organization wants to leave AI out of it, though. Signatures shouldn’t have to match perfectly to be accepted, she said, and computers would be more rigid than humans in making these determinations, she said. Guzman said Common Cause Arizona believes something is needed to verify mail-in voters’ identities, “but additional barriers is not the answer.”