Mary Saucedo, a legally blind Manchester resident is allowed assistance to complete the absentee ballot process. In the 2016 general election, her husband Gus helped her fill out her ballot, but it was rejected -- without any notice -- by election officials who determined her signature didn't match voter registration paperwork.
Mary Saucedo, a legally blind Manchester resident is allowed assistance to complete the absentee ballot process. In the 2016 general election, her husband Gus helped her fill out her ballot, but it was rejected -- without any notice -- by election officials who determined her signature didn't match voter registration paperwork. Credit: Courtesy ACLU-NH

Concord — A federal judge has ruled that local election officials cannot reject absentee ballots merely because they think the voter’s signature looks different than it does on an earlier affidavit, calling the process “fundamentally flawed.”

Tuesday’s ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty overturns a state law giving local moderators the authority to reject absentee ballots due to concerns about signatures. It came in response to a suit filed by the ACLU of New Hampshire on behalf of three residents whose absentee ballots were rejected in 2016.

McCafferty ruled that the law can no longer be enforced because it has a number of flaws that render it unconstitutional.

“Not only is the disenfranchised voter given no right to participate in this process, but the voter is not even given notice that her ballot has been rejected due to a signature mismatch,” McCafferty wrote in her 49-page decision. “Moreover, moderators receive no training in handwriting analysis or signature comparison; no statute, regulation, or guidance from the state provides functional standards to distinguish the natural variations of one writer from other variations that suggest two different writers; and the moderator’s assessment is final, without any review or appeal.”

According to the ACLU, almost 800 ballots were discarded during the 2016, 2014 and 2012 elections collectively.

The three plaintiffs are voters who had their ballots rejected in the 2016 election under this law: Mary Saucedo, a 95-year-old blind woman from Manchester; Maureen Heard, a 20-year military veteran from Derry; and Thomas Fitzpatrick, a professor from New Hampton.

They were represented by Gilles Bissonnette, of the ACLU of New Hampshire; Julie Ebenstein and Claudia Center, of the national ACLU; and New Hampshire attorney Paul Twomey.

“As the court correctly acknowledged, people should not be denied their fundamental right to vote because of penmanship, but that’s exactly what has been regularly happening in New Hampshire for decades,” Bissonnette said of the ruling.

The law, which dates back to the late 1970s, concerns how moderators deal with absentee ballots on Election Day.

Moderators open absentee ballots while the polls are open, determine that the voter is on the checklist, and “compare the signature on the affidavit with the signature on the application for the ballot.”

The ballot is placed in the ballot box as long as “the signature on the affidavit appears to be executed by the same person who signed the application, unless the voter received assistance because the voter is blind or has a disability,” the law says.

The ruling emphasized several times McCafferty’s concern about lack of objective standards to determine whether, or why, signatures might differ.