Key battleground states don't require signature-matching on mail-in ballots

Some signature-match rules have been struck down; others repealed by election officials.

Election rules in multiple key battleground states permit voters to submit mail-in and absentee ballots without having their signatures checked to ensure the vote is valid.

Five states that have historically been competitive in presidential races — North Carolina, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire — do not require signature-matching for mailed voting forms.

In some cases, state officials have explicitly codified that rule. In August, Karen Bell, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, wrote in a memo to all local county boards that a voter's siagnture "shall not be compared with the voter's signature on file because this is not required by North Carolina law."

"County boards shall accept the voter's signature on the container-return envelope if it appears to be made by the voter," she continued, "meaning the signature on the envelope appears to be the name of the voter and not some other person."

"Absent clear evidence to the contrary," she added, "the county board shall presume that the voter's signature is that of the voter, even if the signature is illegible."

In other cases, signature-match rules have been struck down by jurists. Judges in New Hampshire and Iowa in recent years both struck down provisions of state laws mandating signature-match policies for absentee ballots.

In New Hampshire in 2018, a judge struck down a state law ordering election officials to match a voter's signature on the application for a mail-in ballot with the voter's signature on an affidavit accompanying the ballot itself.

"[T]he current process for rejecting voters due to a signature mismatch fails to guarantee basic fairness," the ruling states. "Such discretion [in signature verification] becomes constitutionally intolerable once other factors are taken into account: the natural variations in voters' signatures combined with the absence of training and functional standards on handwriting analysis, and the lack of any review process or compliance measures."

The ruling suggested election officials could institute a policy of reaching out to voters regarding disputed ballots in order to give them a chance to rectify the errors.

In Iowa last year, meanwhile, a district court judge struck down a portion of a state election law which mandated that a voter's affidavit signature match his or her signature on record with the state. The judge struck down that rule both under the Iowa constitution and on procedural due process grounds.

And in Wisconsin, the state's website declares that "election inspectors are not required … to compare the signature [of a voter] to any other record."

"Voters should be directed to sign using their normal signature as they would sign any other official document and election inspectors should indicate the line number on which the voter is to sign," the state says.

"The law does not require voter signatures to be legible," the rule continues.

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https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/key-battleground-states-dont-require-signature-matching-mail-voting

'Absolute Travesty:' Paul Manafort's ex-partner Rick Gates breaks silence on Mueller probe

In his first lengthy public interview since pleading guilty to federal charges in Robert Mueller's now-discredited Trump-Russia collusion probe, Rick Gates slammed that investigation in blunt and unequivocal terms, calling it "an absolute travesty of justice" that "should never happen to any president or any American citizen" ever again.

Gates, who served in President Trump's 2016 campaign and later plead guilty to conspiracy and false statement charges related to his work in Ukraine, said in an interview on the latest episode of the John Solomon Reports podcast that his experience taught him "the way our justice system can be weaponized against so many different people."

The former political consultant stated bluntly that the tactics used by the Mueller investigation indicated that "there was no question that they were trying to get to the president."

Gates suggested the investigation itself was largely political, an affair in which Mueller was reportedly little more than a figurehead.

"Robert Mueller was literally nonexistent during my almost 1,000 hours of cooperation with his office," Gates told John Solomon. "And it wasn't just that he was nonexistent in his physical presence … He was rarely mentioned in any of the interviews. There was no discussion of needing, you know, to talk to Bob Mueller, or anything by the prosecutors."

Instead, Gates said, the investigation seemed to be run largely by Andrew Weissmann. A former FBI general counsel and former chief of the criminal fraud division at the Justice Department, Weissmann joined Mueller, his old boss at the FBI, as his key lieutenant in the special counsel investigation.

"He seemed to be calling the shots," Gates said. "He seemed to be leading the charge."

Weissmann, it became known last month, was among the numerous agents whose phones were allegedly accidentally wiped before being surrendered to the DOJ inspector general's office. Gates in his interview referred to the investigator as "partisan."

Gates, who was sentenced to 45 days in prison on charges of lying to the FBI — offenses that were ultimately unrelated to the now-debunked Trump-Russia conspiracy theory — urged listeners to refrain from simply "mov[ing] on" from the controversy and scandal surrounding the Mueller investigation.

"[We could] actually stop and think what all this has done, not just to our country, but how our adversaries have used our own device in this against us," he said.

"This is not just, you know, one or two bad apples, inside the DOJ or the FBI," he stressed. "It is clear that it is a group of people that felt the president should not be president, and they had a better sense of how the country needed to be led, than the over 60 million people that duly elected Donald Trump president."

He further argued against anger and hatred as a response to the affair. "Hatred corrodes the container that carries it," Gates added, quoting former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson.

"I really do think that we have an opportunity here to learn," he said, "if we allow ourselves to do that."

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/gates-mueller-investigation-should-never-happen-any

but, climate change!

Man charged with setting four wildfires in Northern California forest

A Northern California man has been charged with serial arson in connection with four wildfires in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, authorities announced Wednesday.

Eric Michael Smith, 38, of Redding, is accused of setting the fires in June and July in the forest in Shasta County using a “virtually untraceable cigarette lighter or pen torch,” according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

All four fires were quickly contained without causing any major damage or injuries but one shut down a freeway, authorities said.

Smith was arrested during an investigation into wildfires that had occurred over the past two years near a forest road north of Shasta Lake.

U.S. Forest Service and state fire investigators used hidden motion-detection cameras to identify a car and plant a tracking device on it, according to court records cited by the Sacramento Bee.

On July 23, investigators saw Smith place wood and trash on a burning campfire and then drive away, court documents said.

Two days later, an arson fire flared in an area where Smith had been, according to the documents.

Smith was charged last week with four counts of setting fire to federal land. He is currently free on bond and it wasn’t immediately clear whether he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.

If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The charges come as California faces dry, windy weather that poses an extreme fire danger in the north into Friday.

California already has seen record fires this year. More than 8,500 wildfires have burned more than 6,400 square miles (16,000 square kilometers) in California since the start of the year, most since mid-August. Thirty-one people have died, and more than 9,200 buildings have been destroyed.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/15/man-charged-with-setting-wildfires-in-california-forest/