The Temple of Justice in Washington state. (Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
Washington’s ballot signature verification system is constitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, despite a challenge arguing the process has disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters in the past decade.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices determined steps taken in recent years have improved the system to help voters fix, or “cure,” signature problems on their ballots. Signature verification is a central piece of Washington’s vote-by-mail elections.
“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,” Justice Steven Gonzalez acknowledged in the opinion.
“But signature verification is only a part of the election system established by our legislature,” Gonzalez continued.
He notes, for example, direction to local election workers to go further in trying to reach voters whose ballots may not be counted and an expansion of the ways voters can cure their ballots.
In the opinion, the justices still leave the door open to challenges in specific instances where election workers rejected ballots.
A trio of civic-minded organizations — Vet Voice Foundation, The Washington Bus and El Centro de la Raza — and four individual plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and King County election staff in 2022 over the signature verification process.
They alleged the system disenfranchised voters while doing little to further secure elections. After a King County judge denied summary judgment motions from both sides, the Supreme Court took up the case.
Washington was one of the first states to adopt universal vote-by-mail.
Part of securing those votes is signature verification. Election workers have to verify the signature on each mail-in ballot matches the signature a voter has on file. They do not have to be identical. If there are multiple discrepancies, staff can set the ballot aside as challenged, and allow the voter to verify the ballot is theirs.
Between 2016 and 2022, of over 37 million ballots cast, more than 170,000 were disqualified through this verification process, Gonzalez writes in the opinion. The plaintiffs alleged younger voters and voters of color were more likely to see their ballots rejected.
In the 2020 general election, for example, 2.68% of voters ages 18 to 21 saw their ballots rejected, while the number was 0.38% for those between 45 and 65. The same was true for only 0.63% of white voters, compared to 2.49% of Black voters, Gonzalez notes.
A state audit found no evidence of bias, but was unable to explain the discrepancy.
The plaintiffs argued there is little proof the system has caught potential voter fraud.
“While ostensibly deployed to ‘verify’ a voter’s identity, signature verification is election integrity theater,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Kevin Hamilton, wrote in court documents. “And it is subjective and error-ridden at that — unsurprising, given all the reasons why a voter’s signature could vary, including age, disease, type of pen used, and writing surface.”
In recent years, lawmakers have required election staff to contact voters by email, phone and text if their ballot needs to be cured. The Legislature last year directed the secretary of state to launch a pilot project to test other verification methods than signatures.
“Secretary of State Hobbs recognizes that there is important work to do to improve the implementation of signature verification, and the Secretary is doing that work,” Karl Smith from the state attorney general’s office wrote in a court brief.
The defendants argued that other verification methods, like voters including a copy of their ID with their ballot, writing their driver’s license number on their ballot or fingerprints, have drawbacks.
“Signature verification, as part of a robust system of checks, provides both security and ease of voting,” Gonzalez wrote.
The plaintiff organizations and the King County elections office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday morning.