Judge rules South Carolina absentee ballot signatures do not have to match signatures on file

A judge in South Carolina has just ruled that absentee ballots which have signatures which do no match the signatures the State has on record must still be counted when previously they had been disqualified. Here is more:

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled Tuesday that the state can’t reject absentee ballots because of a signature mismatch, and ordered officials to reprocess all ballots previously thrown out because of signature-related issues.

U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel found that the state lacked a consistent process for matching signatures on voters’ ballots and that some South Carolina counties were disqualifying ballots based on signature problems without authorization.

“Here, absentee ballots, which meet all statutory requirements under South Carolina law, may nonetheless be disqualified on the basis of a subjective judgment that the voter’s signature does not match some sample relied upon by county election officials,” Gergel wrote. “Moreover, a number of the counties conducting signature matching procedures have no or ill-defined procedures for providing affected voters timely notice of a signature mismatch determination or a timely procedure for challenging that determination.”

The ruling goes on to say that if counties in the State still wish to verify a ballot is actually signed by the person whose name is on it the county must submit a plan to the court for approval to ensure any ballots in question can be contested by the voter. That is all very well and good of course, however the ruling comes down one week before the election. Which means there will not be time for a county to get its plan approved by the court in time for the election. All ballots will therefor be counted, including those which are should not be counted for being counterfeit.

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