What if your current signature doesn’t match your old one? | Steve Brawner
Are you sure enough that your signature hasn’t changed that you would bet your vote on it? Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen ruled last week that you don’t have to.
Griffen on March 18 ruled unconstitutional Act 736, which would require that an absentee voter’s signature in Arkansas be compared with their signature when they registered to vote. Previous law allowed multiple signatures to be checked for similarities.
I’m sure my signature has changed since I first registered. In fact, my signature changes according to the situation. It’s two scribbly lines when I’m hurriedly endorsing a check when I’m next in line at the drive-thru teller’s window. It’s even worse when I’m trying to sign my name electronically at the grocery store checkout counter.
What if I had registered to vote 50 years ago, and in the meantime I’ve suffered a stroke or had Parkinson’s disease or arthritis? Would my signatures be even close to the same?
The law was one of four passed by the Arkansas Legislature following President Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020.
Griffen ruled the four laws needlessly placed an undue burden on Arkansans’ fundamental right to vote. The elections, after all, went well here. Josh Bridges, an election systems analyst with Secretary of State’s John Thurston’s office, testified that the 2020 election was “successful” and the vote tabulation “accurate,” according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office said it would appeal.
Brittany Edwards, who represented the attorney general’s office, argued in court that, “while voting is a right … absentee voting is not. It’s a convenience,” the Democrat-Gazette reported.
I would advise the attorney general’s office to drop that argument when it appeals. Getting to an Arkansas ballot box is extremely inconvenient for overseas military members, shut-ins and nursing home residents. For them, the “convenience” of absentee voting may be the only way they can exercise their right to vote.
Among the other laws enjoined by Griffen, Act 728 prohibits people from standing within 100 feet of a polling site unless they are voting or engaged in some other “lawful purpose.” That vaguely worded law passed even though there are already restrictions on polling place electioneering, which is the concern it supposedly addresses. At my site in Benton, the candidates and their supporters always congregate with their campaign signs well across the street on the courthouse lawn. Is it different where you live?
As for the other two laws, Act 249 would require voters who cast provisional ballots – meaning they lack an ID or required documentation as they vote – to provide a photocopy of their ID by noon the Monday after Election Day. Previously, they could submit a sworn statement as they voted. Act 973 would move the deadline for absentee ballots to be returned in person from the Monday before the election to the preceding Friday.
The four laws are not terrible threats to democracy – in fact, I don’t have a problem with the last two – but they were political reactions to a 2020 election that was unusual in two respects. First, it occurred when Arkansas and other states relaxed standards to make it easier and safer for people to vote in a pandemic. And second, the most high-profile candidate who lost in those circumstances, the president of the United States, refused to concede defeat.
This is not the first time lawmakers have reacted to the passions of the moment. It’s why we have courts and a system of checks and balances, and it’s why we let lawmakers continually gather again and possibly rethink things.
The most important aspect of any election is the election itself. Issues come and go. Passions ebb and flow. Republicans and Democrats change and even trade positions over time. Politicians say one thing in a campaign and do the opposite in office, many times for good reasons. But we must ensure citizens’ votes are counted in free and fair elections.
It’s not a guarantee that we’ll always have them – and, as we’ve seen increasingly lately, that we’ll always respect the results.
Steve Brawner is a freelance journalist and syndicated columnist. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com or follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: What if your current signature doesn’t match your old one? | Steve Brawner
