Holy hells, I will happily testify in this case. My signature changes by day because of my MS. Some days my hands have good days and you can read what I wrote, other days it looks like chicken scratch and even doctors can’t read what the hell I wrote. Now I wonder how many times MY ballot has been thrown out. Especially after I married and went from signing my entire name to just using my First and second initial and my last name becomes a scribbled mess. It just became easier to “doctorize” my signature because…well, it just is easier to make a scribble than to write it all out, especially if you have double “N’s” at the end of your last name.
That does NOT give them the right to take MY RIGHTS away. I can’t help that my hands shake because of my MS. I can’t help that I can’t hold a pen tightly enough on one day because my MS has weakened my hand strength so my signature looks weird and off from usual. Even my bank doesn’t question it, what the hell gives these untrained, unqualified people the right to judge whether a signature is mine or not. If they question it, it isn’t like they don’t have ALL of our information, why not just contact the person and ask?!?! Either way, that is discriminatory against disabled and elderly people whose signatures DEFINITELY change over time due to weakness, shaking, or other medical issues. That isn’t even to mention how my signature changed from when I was 18 and first registered to vote.
People’s signatures mature. As they become more versed in writing their name (aka signing a crap ton of papers to buy a new vehicle) they will begin to adapt their signature because they realize that if they don’t they will be there signing their name until they die from it. They begin to become sloppier. They begin to omit unnecessary movements, letters, etc. I used to sign my full first name, my middle initial and carefully twirled out perfect little cursive ”N’s” at the end. Then…doctors offices, buying other things, signing credit card receipts in a hurry, it has become what it is now, unrecognizable as a name in any way. Just looks like a toddler attempting to mimick cursive writing to be honest. But it is mine and it changes based on how much energy I have that day or the next. For them to deem that my vote doesn’t count just because my signature doesn’t match the one on file is tantamount to saying I don’t have any rights at all because I am disabled and that IS WRONG in so many ways it isn’t even funny.
My signature is so bad, that when my husband and I went to sign the papers on our house, I had to actually practice for 20 minutes in the loan officer’s office to remember how to sign my entire name and do it near enough to be legible. Then it took me actually 2 whole minutes of concentrating really hard to actually be able to do it ON the loan papers.
I hope that the ACLU wins. No state should have the right to take someone’s rights away simply because, to their UNTRAINED EYE, signatures don’t match. Unless they hire handwr experts, and even then, people like me would give a handwriting expert a run for their money, because it really seems like someone else is signing my name on some days. I call it alien hand syndrome ala Multiple Sclerosis. Just like it sometimes enjoys throwing change on the counter when the check out person hands me the change at a grocery store. My right hand does what it wants when it wants and it will sign my bame how it wants too.
And what the hell about the people whose dominant hand is in a cast or they can’t use it? Their signature is definitely going to be off. So, what then? Do they not have rights too? This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of happening and it really pisses me off because these people, most assuredly, made their decisions based on bias and ignorance and I will bet anything it was politically motivated.