Arizona Court Dismisses GOP Effort to Limit Signature Verification Methods
An Arizona Appeals Court has upheld a decision allowing county election officials to use various documents for verifying signatures on early ballots, rejecting a challenge by the Arizona Republican Party and associated conservative groups.
The lawsuit, initiated in 2023 by the Arizona Republican Party, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, and a voter from Yavapai County, contested the methods permitted for signature verification on early ballots. The plaintiffs argued that state law restricts election workers to using only a voter’s original registration signature for comparison.
This challenge was specifically directed at rules permitting the comparison of signatures on early ballots with those on other election-related documents, including prior election ballot envelopes. The lawsuit claimed that “early ballot envelopes submitted in prior elections… are not ‘registration records,’ and hence are not a lawful comparative reference for conducting signature validation.”
However, in a 2024 ruling, Judge John Napper confirmed that the updated Secretary of State’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM) supports using old ballot envelopes for verification purposes. According to Napper, the Arizona Legislature had the chance to exclude this method but did not do so, indicating legislative approval of the EPM’s guidelines.
“The Legislature had every opportunity to eliminate ‘prior early ballot affidavits’ as a comparison tool but chose not to do so. Nothing in these amendments suggests the Legislature found the EPM’s working definition of registration record was improper,” Napper noted in his decision.
The recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals panel further solidified this stance, maintaining that the Republican Party and its allies lacked the legal standing to file the lawsuit. Judge Jeffrey Sklar explained that the plaintiffs’ disagreement was with the interpretation of state law by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, not with a failure in fulfilling obligatory duties. Sklar asserted, “This amounts to issue advocacy, which as we have explained, cannot confer standing.”
The plaintiffs have yet to decide if they will appeal the case to the Arizona Supreme Court.
—
Read More Arizona News
