The Grand Illusion
Last week, when I was watching a news story on the results of the election, a particular news item caught my attention – that a number of ballots cast by young people in Nevada were being scrutinized because the signatures on the ballot didn’t match the signatures on file.
Fraud, you might ask. Apparently not.
The signature on the mail-in ballot or in some states on the voting register has to match the signature on file, and that is noted on the ballot, and the signature on file has to match the name on whatever legal document was used to register.
That’s true here in Utah as well, so while my friends know me as Lee Modesitt, and I write under L.E. Modesitt, Jr., the signature on my mail-in ballot has to be my full legal name – Leland Exton Modesitt, Jr. Otherwise, the ballot will be questioned, and possibly thrown out, or I might have to prove to the County Clerk that I’m the one who cast the ballot.
This is spelled out clearly, but the ballots of more than a few ballots of young voters in Nevada were being scrutinized for inadequate signature matches, according to the news.
I’m hardly surprised. Too many of my wife’s college students don’t read the syllabus (and often don’t listen to the same information imparted orally), and then protest that they didn’t know an assignment was due or that a test was scheduled for a given date. So it’s not exactly shocking that some young voters didn’t read the ballot instructions, either.
I have a sort of Oprah Winfrey signature I do when I’m in a rush, and another one I do when I feel I have more time. They’re actually quite different looking. I had to take a moment with my mail-in ballot to check my ID to see which one I’d signed with.
I feel like the youth are going to be forced to learn some hard lessons from life since we’ve collectively failed to teach them ourselves. I hope they’re able to recover when reality hits.
Probably the very few times many young people actually ‘sign’ their name is using a digital signature screen for a credit or debit card. And we all know that’s a crap representation as one usually uses a finger to scrawl something on a too-tiny screen.
Even when they have you use a stylus, for various reasons (not a wide, flat surface, different texture), it still isn’t anywhere close to what normal writing is like
Additionally, the only times I have to sign my full name are when voting or buying/selling property. That means I’m out of practice doing it, and causes a lot of variations. Muscle memory also causes problems, as the flow of the signature will stop after “Chris” before I finish writing the last part of my first name. Depending on how I stop it can cause a notable difference between signatures.
I really wish we could find a viable replacement for physical signatures, but none of the alternatives work out very well. In person voting is an issue for a lot of people (disabilities, lack of transportation, insufficient staffing of polling locations), and digital voting is too open to hacking and properly securing it (a little USB fob) would too frequently result in lost credentials.