A judge has found that Arizona’s signature matching process for mail-in ballots is unlawful, delivering what the plaintiffs in the lawsuit called a “massive win” for election integrity.
Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper issued a ruling last week (pdf) in a lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes brought by public interest group Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), which alleged that Mr. Fontes broke the law regarding mail-in ballot signature verification procedures.
Specifically, the group argued that Mr. Fontes’ interpretation of “registration record” in the Secretary of State’s Elections Procedures Manual was unreasonably broad and improperly expanded the pool of signatures to which an early ballot affidavit signature could be compared, increasing the risk of false positives.
“While state law requires county recorders to match mail-ballot signatures with signatures in the voter’s ‘registration record,’ the Secretary instructed them to use a broader and less reliable universe of comparison signatures,” RITE said in a Sept. 5 statement on the court ruling.
“That means the Secretary was requiring ballots to be counted despite using a signature that did not match anything in the voter’s registration record. This was a clear violation of state law,” the group added.
Former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who sued Mr. Fontes and Maricopa County officials over the signature verification process that was used in last year’s election, took to X to post about the decision.
“A court just found that Arizona’s signature matching process is UNLAWFUL,” Ms. Lake said.
“This is what happens when you don’t back down from a fight,” the Kari Lake War Room account said in a post on X.
Mr. Fontes’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.