by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press February 17, 2025
To cast an absentee ballot by mail in North Carolina, voters must follow two simple steps. First, they need two witnesses to watch them sign the ballot envelope. Second, they need to attach a copy of an acceptable form of photo identification to their ballot. And if a recently completed pilot program is expanded to the entire state, there may soon be a third security measure: the use of a special machine to verify a voter’s signature.
North Carolina would be the only state to use all three security requirements, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
During the 2024 primary, 10 counties participated in a “signature verification” pilot program. Now the results are in — and they’re not all positive.
What the numbers show
It was an experiment that cost over $450,000, mostly to pay for verification equipment for 10 counties. County boards incurred an additional $8,000.
The time commitment varied from county to county. In Durham County, the most populous participant, the program took 80 staff hours. In smaller areas like Bertie and Cherokee counties, the job only took an hour or two.
And the results are mixed.
In Rowan County, for instance, the signature verification software reviewed 308 absentee ballots during the primary election. It spit out 24 as potential mismatched signatures.
After a second, manual review, elections staff felt confident that all of the signatures actually did match except for one.
According to Sharon Main,Rowan County’s elections director, there was a pattern among the ballots needing additional review: The average age of the voter casting them was 67.
“When you looked at them, and you looked at the handwriting and you compared it to what was on file, you could still see similarities, but it was just shakier or more sideways,” Main said.
The verification software also got confused when comparing the absentee ballots’ ink and digital signatures on file from places like the DMV. Handwriting outside of signature boxes and other slight alterations were enough for the machine to reject some valid signatures.
After an initial machine review, 239 ballots — or 10.6% — of 2,235 were rejected.
However, a manual review of these signatures found just six that failed both tests.
Democracy NC, a grassroots organization that deploys personnel across the state to watch electoral processes, attests that much of what their monitors flagged also appeared in the pilot program’s final report made to the General Assembly by State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell.
“I think it’s a lot easier to say something and to pass a law than to actually think about the reality of how it would impact voters,” said Katelin Kaiser, the policy director for Democracy NC.
Good idea, poor execution?
The program suffered unexpected delays, according to Brinson Bell’sreport.
The State Board missed its first reporting deadline because it couldn’t find a vendor in time. Bell asked for at least six months to find a better vendor if the legislature decides to expand the program statewide.
After the scanners were finally delivered in June 2024, there were immediate issues. The machines had a hard time reading barcodes on absentee ballots. Some voters wrote outside small signature boxes, which complicated analysis. And reference signatures — handwriting compared to absentee-envelope signatures— had varying image qualities, depending on their age and origin.
Jay DeLancy, the executive director of a North Carolina organization called the Voter Integrity Project, was a supporter of signature verification six years ago. After research and speaking to software developers, he sent a PowerPoint presentation to lawmakers in 2018 recommending they spend federal funds on the effort.
But after reading the results of the pilot program, he’s changed his mind.
“I like the ideas behind it, but I think the application to elections, it’s just not going to work,” DeLancy said.
He also thinks absentee voting may fade away, which would negate the need for such a program. State Board of Elections turnout data shows that, with the exception of 2020, about 5% of North Carolina voters utilize absentee by-mail voting in most presidential elections.
With each verification system costing between $300,000 and $450,000, the math quickly adds up.
“I think there’s far better ways to spend the money,” DeLancy said.
No problems with these signature programs
Bertie County Elections Director LaToya Peele is grateful for the “head start” on what may become a permanent, statewide process. The pilot program went well in her county with only one ballot requiring a second review, she said.
Further south in Pamlico County, there were also no issues.
Halifax County Election Director Kristin Scott said staff encountered some of the same technical difficulties as other counties, but the process turned out fine. Still, she wouldn’t go straight to a statewide implementation right away.
“I think a lot of testing could be done with it just to make sure that what we’re doing is accurate,” Scott said.
Will legislature expand signature program?
Last year, the General Assembly passed new election deadlines in Senate Bill 382.
Now, county boards must begin counting absentee ballots on Election Night — and can’t stop until they’re done. Previously, additional meetings were allowed before the canvass — 10 days after the election. Now, all absentee and provisional ballots have to be counted by the Friday after the election instead of before the canvass.
Main is already worried about the new deadlineseven without signature verification as part of the equation.
“You add a signature verification pilot program on top of it? That’s going to be a really long day, and it’s already about a 15 to 16-hour day,” she said.
Maybe modifications can be made to the software, Main added, but she isn’t sure.
“If they do go with it, I’m going to do my best to meet that requirement,” Main said. “But I do believe that they need to realize how much extra time and power that’s going to take. I want them to be fair to us on that one.”
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-18 14:16:00
(The Center Square) – Planning and response to Hurricane Helene with early voting already underway has been deemed worthy of an award for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Fifty-three programs from 258 nominations earned the Exemplary Contingency Planning and Emergency Response Efforts award from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Additionally, election boards in the counties of Buncombe, Currituck, Durham and Wake won 2024 Clearinghouse Awards, and those in Durham, Rockingham and Union counties earned honorable mention.
Helene killed 107 and caused an estimated $60 billion damage.
The storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Dekle Beach, Fla., on Sept. 26. It dissipated over the mountains of the state and Tennessee, dropping more than 30 inches in some places and over 24 consistently across more.
Election Day was six weeks away. The disaster area declared included 25 counties and coordination with the state board; county boards; lawmen on the federal, state and local levels; the state National Guard; the U.S. Postal Service; and information technology professionals on multiple levels.
Voter turnout in the 25 counties was 74.9%, a tick higher than the state average of 72.6%.
“We are extremely proud of the efforts of our state’s election officials and our partners to pull off a successful election under the most trying of circumstances,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the state board’s executive director. “Hundreds of thousands of western North Carolinians were able to vote in the important 2024 election because of state board planning, along with the hard work and resiliency of county election officials and the invaluable assistance of our emergency management and law enforcement partners.”
The award is a different kind of light for the state board.
Between July 22 and Sept. 12, seven lawsuits were filed against the state board of Democrats Alan Hirsch, its chairman, Jeff Carmon and Siobhan Millen; and Republicans Stacy Eggers and Kevin Lewis; and Bell. More followed the election and are still unresolved along with the state Supreme Court race between Democrat Allison Riggs and Republican Jefferson Griffin.
SUMMARY: U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador. Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, traveled to El Salvador to check on Abrego Garcia, who has been held for over a month at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). The Trump administration acknowledged the deportation error. Despite challenges in securing a meeting, Van Hollen met Abrego Garcia and shared an update with his wife. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele mocked the meeting, commenting that Abrego Garcia would remain in custody.
SUMMARY: In Disney’s “Magic of Storytelling” podcast, Thumper discovers a robin’s egg after a storm. He and his four sisters—Trixie, Tessy, Daisy, and Ria—worry about the egg being cold and try to keep it warm with leaves. As they debate the best approach, they decide to find the mama robin for help. Meanwhile, Thumper and Daisy attempt to cheer the egg by singing and dancing. Eventually, the sisters return with a nest just as the mama robin arrives. The egg hatches, bringing joy to the bunnies as they celebrate their teamwork and caring efforts.
Thumper the bunny is hopping along one day and finds a special egg! Soon, he and his family are set out on an adventure to find the egg’s Mama.
