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Home – Political News – End of the Clipboard? Activists Say Going Digital Could Get Fraud Out of Citizen-Led Ballot Measures

End of the Clipboard? Activists Say Going Digital Could Get Fraud Out of Citizen-Led Ballot Measures

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A conservative group advocating greater use of citizen ballot initiatives has created a platform to allow secure digital signatures to replace traditional handwritten signatures, arguing technology could lower the cost of petition drives and reduce fraud.

The Prosperity for US Foundation contends that modernizing petition laws to permit verified and authenticated electronic signatures—requiring backup information such as the last four digits of a Social Security number and a driver’s license number—could transform how citizens qualify initiatives for the ballot.

The foundation argues that digital signatures are already widely used in private sector transactions and have been recognized under state and federal law for decades. 

Its platform would use a petitioner’s name, date of birth, state, voter registration information, driver’s license number, and the last four digits of a Social Security number to pre-authenticate a signature to send to a secretary of state.

“You can use a digital signature to register to vote,” Bob Carlstrom, executive director of the Prosperity for US Foundation, told the Daily Signal. “If it can be used to verify voter registration, a digital signature should be used to verify signers for a ballot initiative.”

The foundation’s argument is that authenticated digital signatures could reduce the number of legitimate signatures rejected while simultaneously making fraudulent signatures more difficult to submit.

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