Durham one of 10 NC counties chosen to test new signature-matching rules for 2024 mail-in voting

Durham voters in the 2024 elections will be among a small set of North Carolinians chosen to test out a new signature-matching program for voting by mail, the State Board of Elections decided Tuesday.

A new state law passed by Republican legislators in 2023 required the elections board to pick 10 counties to serve as the initial testing ground for signature-matching software, which has been used in other states but never in North Carolina. The program will compare the signatures people use to sign their mail-in ballots with various signatures the state government has on file for them.

In other states, if the software decides someone's signature is a match, their vote will count. If not, the ballot will be flagged for a human to look at and make a final decision. However, the new law says that during this initial pilot program, North Carolina officials shouldn’t reject ballots that the software flags for the signature not matching. Officials plan to use multiple software vendors during the pilot, which could give a good indication which programs work best and whether there are issues that need to be ironed out before a more permanent, statewide program begins.

“This is for experimental purposes only,” the elections board wrote in a news release following Tuesday’s meeting. “It will not affect the counting of any voter’s ballot in the primary election.”

For now, the signature-matching rules are only in effect for the 2024 primary election in March, only in the 10 select counties, and only for people who vote by mail. The legislature could decide to require signature-matching statewide in the November general election, too, but that would require passing a new law.

The elections board on Tuesday picked Bertie, Cherokee, Durham, Halifax, Henderson, Jones, Montgomery, Pamlico, Rowan, and Wilkes counties for the pilot program. They represent a mix of racial, economic, geographic and political makeups.

The rule is part of a controversial new law, opposed by Democrats who say its various new rules are largely aimed at a single goal: Suppressing the vote ahead of the 2024 elections. Republicans say that's not true, and they believe it’s needed to stop voter fraud. Recent audits in North Carolina and in other states have shown voter fraud is nearly nonexistent — affecting far less than 1% of votes — but does occasionally happen, on both sides of the aisle.

Republican lawmakers had originally proposed requiring signature matching in all 100 counties statewide, and for every election. But skeptics raised multiple questions about instituting such a large change all at once. And the final version of the law was pared down significantly, to just this 10-county pilot program to be conducted during the primaries.

People who vote by mail must already have two witnesses sign their ballot, or one witness with a notary. And starting this year, they must also photocopy their driver’s license or other valid photo identification and mail that in with their ballot. Some Democrats have previously said that requiring signature-matching on top of those other rules appeared to be intended for the sole purpose of disenfranchising people who vote by mail, since mail-in voting tends to be more popular with Democrats than with Republicans.

In other states, signature matching programs have been accused of causing legitimate ballots to be thrown out.

People’s signatures can change over time, or depending on where they sign. For instance in North Carolina, many people register to vote at the DMV and sign using electronic pads — not the same method they’d be using when they vote, signing with a pen on paper.

Once the pilot program is finished after the primary election in March, the state elections board must send a report to the legislature for state lawmakers to use as they consider how, or if, to expand the program.