Judge rules absentee signatures don't have to match

FPI / October 29, 2020

Election officials can't throw out absentee ballots whose signatures do not match those on file, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said that the signature authorization procedures being used by local authorities were “subjective.”

The judge's ruling prohibits election boards from rejecting ballots for mismatched signatures without giving voters notice and an opportunity to contest it. Gergel ordered the state to reprocess ballots that had already been thrown out because of mismatches.

The judge added that matching the signatures was a significant “burden” on the right to vote, The Washington Post reported.

South Carolina is in the midst of an intense battle over the Senate seat held by Republican Lindsey Graham, who faces a challenge from Jaime Harrison, the most well-funded Senate candidate in American history.

Meanwhile, newly released undercover footage appears to reveal a ballot harvesting operation in San Antonio which collects votes for Democrat candidates.

Project Veritas released the video which shows a ballot chaser named Raquel Rodriguez as she illegally harvests mail ballots, offers gifts for their completion, and admits that what she is doing is illegal.

In one clip, she is shown apparently helping a voter change her vote from Republican John Cornyn to Democrat M.J. Hegar.

“What I do — picking up those ballots when he was with me — that’s illegal. I could go to jail. I’m a little apprehensive to tell anybody what I’m [expletive] doing, you know what I’m saying?” Rodriguez explains in the video.

Rodriquez also says she can bring at least 7,000 voters to the polls.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said his office is already reviewing the potential election fraud shown in the video.

“What’s shown in the video is shocking and should alarm all Texans who care about election integrity. We are aggressively investigating the serious allegations and potential crimes that Project Veritas’s documentary audio and video recordings shed light on today. My office is fiercely committed to ensuring that the voting process is secure and fair in all Texas elections — a process that this video unfortunately casts a shadow of doubt on,” said Paxton.

Free Press International