More than a month after voting by mail in the presidential election, South Los Angeles resident Tyler Johnson learned that his vote was not being counted because election workers took issue with the way he signed his signature on the ballot envelope.
Elections offices told Johnson his ballot signature did not match another signature they had on file. Johnson wasn’t sure what signature it was, but he knew it would look different: After years of printing his name, he perfected his cursive signature a few months ago.
“Most people my age are just doodling,” said Johnson, 20, who works as an administrative assistant at a medical imaging clinic.
For young Americans who rarely sign anything other than paper receipts or coffee shop iPads, written signatures no longer mean much — except when voting by mail, where signatures are crucial to determining whether a mail-in ballot is counted .
In California, voters under the age of 25 made up 10% of the November electorate, but nearly three in 10 ballots were left as signature questions, according to an analysis by the voter data firm Political Data. The signature question ballots come from voters under 35 years old.
California typically verifies voters’ identities by mailing their signatures. Up to three election workers scrutinize each ballot envelope to make sure the signature matches the voter’s registration document or driver’s license and set aside envelopes with missing or mismatched signatures.
Election officials must notify these voters and give them an opportunity to correct their errors.
In the November election, nearly 200,000 ballots in 58 California counties were flagged for signature issues. Nearly 6 in 10 ballots were eventually counted through a process known as “repair,” in which voters fill out a form to prove the defective ballot was theirs, while more than 83,000 ballots were not counted.
In a survey of voters whose ballots were marked due to signature issues, 40% of respondents said their signatures looked different than before, and another 40% said they used sloppy, incomplete or haphazard signatures. of signatures, “like the one I use when I sign the bill at a restaurant,” and 12 percent said they completely forgot to sign the envelope.
“When you’re dealing with a state with 22 million voters and 16 million voters mailing in signature ballots, little things that don’t make sense can cause problems in a number of ways,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of PDI. “An investigation was conducted.
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page advises voters to check the signature on their driver’s license before signing a ballot and consider sending in a new registration form if the signature changes. He said Orange County plans to send forms to 12,000 voters in hopes of getting new signatures.
“We know signatures change over time,” Page said. “We know that the way people sign with their fingers on the little pad at the DMV is not how they actually sign.”
Mitchell’s analysis found that in the state’s six most competitive congressional races, 85% of ballots flagged for signature issues by Republicans and Democrats were able to fix the ballots and have them counted, 25% higher than the state average percentage points.
Republicans and Democrats sent armies of volunteers and staff to campaign door-to-door in the most competitive U.S. House districts.
In the Central Valley, Democrat Adam Gray narrowly defeated Republican Rep. John Duarte, with Democrats and Republicans winning far more than the 187-vote margin in the race.
Campaign volunteers and staff went door-to-door in districts, trying to talk to voters face-to-face, explaining how to complete ballot documents and in some cases helping them scan, print and return forms.
Mitchell found that in competitive swing districts, voters with no party preference had much lower returns than Republican and Democratic voters, suggesting that each party focuses first on their most loyal voters.
In less competitive districts, voters are more dependent on themselves.
Cassidy Crotwell, 22, registered to vote during her senior economics class at El Toro High School in Orange County. She said everyone in the class signed up on their phones, but she didn’t sign anything.
Crotwell learned of the issue with her November ballot signature through a text message from the Orange County Registrar’s Office. Rep. Young Kim, the Republican who represents her congressional district, easily won re-election, and there has been no meaningful bipartisan action on treatment there; no other groups or campaigns have contacted Crotwell, she said.
She thought the elections office had her signature from when she got her driver’s license when she was 16, but she said her signature “is more specific now” — a result of her job in human resources, where she signed many of them. Work. She ended up not amending her ballot, but plans to update her signature the next time she goes to the DMV.
Johnson, a South Los Angeles voter, also did not change his ballot. The presidential election had been weeks away when he learned his vote had not yet been counted.
Johnson said he will vote in person — no signature required — in the 2026 midterm elections.
