The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Wednesday ruled that Arizona does not have to give voters who forget to sign their mail ballots time to resolve the issue following the election, reinstating Arizona’s election day deadline for fixing the issue.
Under Arizona law, voters are allowed to verify mismatched signatures for up to five days after election day. However, according to Arizona’s Elections Procedures Manual, ballots with missing signatures are considered incomplete and are not counted. Arizona voters may correct a ballot with a missing signature only by submitting a signed ballot by election day. They cannot resolve the missing signature issue post-election.
In June 2020, the Arizona Democratic Party sued the state. It claimed that the deadline for fixing missing signatures denied voters due process and violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. A federal judge ruled in favor of the Democratic Party, holding that it was unconstitutional for Arizona to give voters time post-election to resolve mismatched signatures but not missing signatures. Because of this, the district court required the state to extend the deadline by three or five days, depending on the election type. The state then appealed.
On Wednesday, the appeals court held that the state had an important regulatory interest in reducing the administrative burden on poll workers. Plaintiffs argued that the burden on voters who failed to sign the affidavit and correct the missing signature was severe because the deadline resulted in disenfranchisement. However, the court found that the burden on the voter to sign an affidavit or correct a missing signature by election day was “minimal.” Further, the court held that Arizona rationally distinguished between voters who neglected to sign the affidavit and voters who validly submitted a completed but not verified ballot.
Judge Tashima dissented from the opinion, stating: “Our democracy is weakened by any limitations on the right to vote, especially when the proffered justifications for the restrictions are so flimsy.”
Arizona has also recently added more restrictions to mail-in voting. In May, Arizona enacted legislation to remove individuals from a list of voters who automatically receive mail-in ballots if they fail to vote in the primary and general elections for two consecutive election cycles. In July, the US Supreme Court upheld two provisions of Arizona’s restrictive voting law. One provision requires that ballots cast at the wrong precinct be discarded, while the other “makes it a crime for any person other than a postal worker, an elections official, or a voter’s caregiver, family member, or household member to knowingly collect an early ballot.”
