Arkansas’s State Board of Election Commissioners voted Wednesday to send the emergency rule barring electronic signatures on voter registration forms out for public comment, moving the prohibition closer to becoming permanent.
The rule requires Arkansans to go full Luddite if they want to vote, by moving pen over paper to produce what’s known in the business as a “wet signature.” Those paper applications can be hand-delivered or mailed in, but not scanned and emailed.
Proponents of joining the modern age and allowing electronic signatures on voter registration documents point to the decades-long success of online registration in 42 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Guam. They also point to Arkansas: The federal 1993 Voter Registration Act — aka the “motor voter” act — allows for digital voter registration at state DMVs nationwide, including here. Arkansas’s move to block convenient and accessible online voter registration is just another way to disenfranchise would-be voters, opponents say.
Wednesday’s move by the State Board of Election Commissioners to open up public comment about the proposed change — a required step before legislators can vote make the rule permanent — came with no dissent or discussion at the commission’s regular monthly meeting.
Chris Madison, staff director for the state board, shared a timeline to get the rule in front of lawmakers by summer’s end. He plans to post public notice about the change Friday and open public comment from June 17 to July 17. People can weigh in by email or letter, or they can speak at a July 11 public hearing.
The Arkansas Legislative Council, a panel of lawmakers who meet monthly when the Legislature isn’t in session, would likely consider the permanent rule change in August.
Some background: This whole rule-change hullabaloo arose after former state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) and fellow voter engagement enthusiasts at the nonprofit Get Loud Arkansas crafted a system to make voter registration easier. The group’s digital platform allowed Arkansans to fill out and sign the state’s required document online. Then, they could print it out and mail it in or deliver it themselves, or ask Get Loud Arkansas to do it.
Elliott and her team asked the secretary of state’s office if this system was OK earlier this year, and initially got a qualified thumbs up. But Secretary of State John Thurston seemingly had a quick change of heart, and within days advised county clerks across the state to reject voter registration applications signed electronically. Many of them, but not all, took his advice.
Madison told lawmakers that wet signatures are a necessary tool to prevent voter fraud.
“The signature on an application is more than just an affirmation that I’m a qualified voter,” he said at a May hearing, when a committee of lawmakers passed the emergency rule requiring wet sigs. “It’s also used for the purpose of identification. In the absentee voting process, when you submit an application for an absentee ballot, the clerk is to compare the signature on the application to the signature on the voter registration application to satisfy himself or herself that the person that’s requesting the ballot is that person.”
Democrats at the hearing voiced objections and poked holes, but Republican members, who make up a solid majority, approved the emergency rule easily.
If the wet signature rule becomes permanent, which is likely, it will get added to the pile of a growing list of jabs and trip-ups that make voting in Arkansas more of a hassle. They include persnickety deadline changes for absentee ballots and bans on do-gooders delivering snacks and water to people waiting in long lines at the polls. Artful carving by gerrymanderers’ pens in recent years has diluted the power of Black voters. But at least we can’t slip lower in the rankings: Arkansas already has the lowest level of voter engagement in the country.