Arizona Formally Bans Post-Election Signature Fix for Unsigned Mail-In Ballots

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law on Friday banning voters from adding signatures on unsigned mail-in ballots after election day.

Current Arizona law allows election officials to contact the voters to fix the signatures on the ballots if the signatures don't match other signatures from records in the Department of Motor Vehicle, voter registration forms, or previous early ballots.

Before the 2020 election, Arizona Secretary of the State Katie Hobbs-a Democrat-was trying to set a five-business-day grace period for the voters to fix the ballots if the ballots are not signed.

Hobbs's move is part of the efforts to honor a settlement in 2019 with the Navajo Nation, which allows Navajo voters with mismatched or missing signatures on mail-in ballots to correct their ballots with five business days after the election day.

The efforts were stopped by the appeal court judges who said, in alignment with the state Republicans, that the Democrats went too far by giving absentee voters five days after Election Day to correct missing signatures on mail-in ballots.

"All ballots must have some deadline, and it is reasonable that Arizona has chosen to make that deadline Election Day itself so as to promote its unquestioned interest in administering an orderly election and to facilitate its already burdensome job of collecting, verifying, and counting all of the votes in timely fashion," the appellate court said.

The amendment requires all mail-in ballots to be delivered to the county recorder, other officers in charge of the election, or polling sites no later than 7:00 p.m. on election day.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/arizona-formally-ban-post-election-signature-fix-for-unsigned-mail-in-ballots_3807930.html