VICTOR JOECKS: Election official inadvertently admits signature verification is fatally flawed

Clark County just inadvertently admitted that signature verification isn’t a reliable security measure. Just don’t expect officials to acknowledge it.

If you’re an active voter in the Las Vegas area, the Clark County Election Department recently sent you a signature update form. It asks you to sign your name in a red box. Voters have the option of providing additional information, including a driver’s license number and last four digits of their Social Security number.

“Nevada law requires us to use a voter’s signature to confirm their identity when voting,” the card states. It continues, “Having an updated signature could make it easier to process your mail ballot.”

If you send in the card, election officials will replace the signature they have on file with the new one.

This appears well-intentioned. Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena Portillo has said that a voter’s signature can change as he or she ages, noting it happened to her son. That’s true. Your signature can also vary based on how much of a hurry you’re in or what you’re writing on.

But think about the unstated implication. Signatures aren’t a unique identifier such as a fingerprint. Here’s an election official openly acknowledging that they change over time.

Yet, that’s what officials use to verify who filled out and returned mail ballots.

There are further problems. Signatures often look alike. It’s possible to sign someone else’s name on the ballot envelope and have election officials deem it a match.

That’s no theoretical concern. I did a version of this in 2020 and 2022 with the help of some friends. I wrote their name in my handwriting and sent them a picture. They copied my version of their signature on their ballot envelopes. That two-step process made the experiments legal.

In 2020, officials accepted my signature on eight of nine ballot envelopes. In 2022, they passed through six of the 11 ballot envelopes.

Unfortunately, this signature update provides a new opportunity for fraud. If someone obtained another person’s signature update form, they could return it and put their version of the signature on file. This could happen at an apartment complex where people frequently move. In 2020, Billy Geurin, a Las Vegas resident, found five discarded ballots at his apartment complex.

If the voter rolls were perfect, this would be less of a concern. But the Pigpen Project, a group doing great working to improve Nevada’s voter rolls, has unearthed mounds of evidence that they aren’t. People move and don’t bother to update their voter registration. Even if they vote in a new state, their Nevada registration may not be canceled.

That would be less of a concern if officials sent out absentee ballots only to those who requested them. Or if voters had to show ID to vote in person. But thanks to Democrats, Nevada sends unrequested ballots out far and wide.

There is hope. Question 7 will be on the ballot this November This constitutional amendment, which has to pass twice, would require voter ID. It would also make voters returning mail ballots include a unique number to verify their identity.

That would be a much better way to ensure the person named on the ballot is the one who actually sent it in.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.