Washington Supreme Court Upholds State’s Ballot Signature Verification System
In a ruling Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court upheld the state’s ballot signature verification system — the process by which election officials compare a voter’s signature on a mail-in ballot envelope to the one that’s on file with election officials.
A lawsuit was filed in 2022 by pro-voting groups Vet Voice Foundation, The Washington Bus, El Centro de la Raza and voters challenging the constitutionality of the state’s signature verification process, arguing it “is an inherently fraught endeavor” as even “highly trained writing analysts who have at their disposal the latest tools and the luxury of time make mistakes.” The lawsuit also alleged that because of the state’s signature verification process, thousands of Washington voters are likely to be disenfranchised, in violation of multiple state constitutional provisions.
But the Washington Supreme Court found that the state’s signature verification system is indeed constitutional. “All too many ballots are not counted because election workers cannot verify the voter’s signatures and the voter does not or cannot cure their ballot in time,” Washington Supreme Court Justice Steven Gonzalez wrote in the court’s opinion. “But signature verification is only a part of the election system established by our legislature.”
As part of its mail-in voting system, Washington enacted a signature verification system to protect the state’s elections against voter fraud. But the plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare and there are voting safeguards in place to thwart fraud. Because of the state’s signature verification system, the plaintiffs alleged in their original complaint that 36,000 cast ballots were rejected in the 2022 midterm elections.
In his opinion, Gonzalez mentioned that the signature verification system “does not require election workers to disqualify a single valid ballot” and added that, “when coupled with the increasingly expansive opportunities to cure a rejected ballot,” the signature verification system “does not exclude anyone from casting a vote or make the right to vote ‘so inconvenient that it is impossible to exercise it.’”
In a statement, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs (D) praised the court’s ruling. “We are pleased with the court’s ruling, which affirms our commitment to secure, accessible, and transparent elections in Washington,” he said. “Signature verification has been a fundamental part of our state’s vote-by-mail system for decades, helping to protect against fraud while ensuring that every eligible voter’s ballot is counted.”
Though the court’s ruling upheld the signature verification requirement, the opinion also made it clear that the ruling shouldn’t preclude future challenges to specific instances where a voter’s ballot was tossed out because of the system.
“The undisputed fact that signature verification results in tens of thousands of votes being disqualified every election raises significant constitutional concerns,” Gonzalez wrote. “Nothing in this opinion should be read to foreclose an as-applied challenge to the way signature verification has been used in specific instances or places.”