Your absentee ballot, your vote, and your support on a ballot measure greatly depend on the match between your signature and your voter registration card. The following issues were raised in the past Referendum 71 and is equally important to remember for the 2012 ballot measures.
- Is the formation of the letters identical? Did you write a cursive “S” on one form and a printed “S” on the other?
- Did you use a nickname on one and a full legal name on the other? Was the voter card signed “Robert” but the petition signed “Bob”?
- Many Asian and Russian names may have the first and last names transposed. In the native country the last name comes first but in America the opposite is true.
- Some of the petitions had only one initial and one fully spelled name. Catherine Johnson could be “C. Johnson” in order to fit in the space but this may have resulted in a rejection.
- The address on the referendum did not match the address on the Voter database. People moving and young people using their parents address may result in a disallowed signature.
- Changes in names due to marriage, divorce, and dare I state “sex changes” may not have been reflected in the signature cards.
- Be sure to fill out all boxes and not simply write the shorthand marks of two lines to indicate same as above “ l l ”.