Gen Z signatures put some Nevada ballots in limbo

More than 13,000 mail-in ballots in Nevada’s two most populous counties—Clark and Washoe—had been rejected as of Monday afternoon, in part because of young voters’ signatures, The New York Times reported. 

“It’s mostly the fact that young people don’t have signatures these days,” Nevada secretary of state Francisco Aguilar said outside a Las Vegas polling center Tuesday. “And when they did register to vote through the automatic voter registration process, they signed a digital pad at DMV, and that became their license signature.”

The signatures on mail-in ballots in Nevada—a swing state worth six electoral votes—are compared to the voter’s signature in a voter database to verify the ballots. Voters can rectify, or “cure,” their ballots through Nov. 12, one week after Election Day.

The number of ballots that require curing to get counted in both Clark and Washoe Counties, which include Las Vegas and Reno, respectively, is higher than in 2020 and 2022. And as ballots kept coming in on Tuesday, that number was expected to get even bigger. 

Aguilar’s office said it will ensure the signature verification process is “being applied equally across the state,” the Times reported. 

“When you start to look at the data and you start to realize how high it is, it makes you nervous, because, again, these races are so close, the margins are so slim, that I don’t want to look at the numbers tonight and know that we have to wait for ballots to be cured,” he said. “We need to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard.”