Last week the Arkansas state board of election commissioners met and voted to approve a declaratory order that would halt some voter registration forms that are signed electronically.
The decision came as a surprise to some. That’s in part because earlier this month, Attorney General Tim Griffin responded to a question from Secretary of State John Thurston about the topic of electronically signing a voter registration form. Griffin’s opinion was essentially as long as the registration form is created and distributed by the Secretary of State, an electronic signature or mark is generally valid under Arkansas law. Chris Madison is the director of the Board of Election Commissioners, he said there are different tools that can be used to understand how state laws work together.
“The Attorney General’s opinion said that the signature or mark term was not defined in Amendment 51” Madison said, “and if the form is being used, then we have this other law that allows electronic signatures are generally acceptable. They can be accepted, not that they have to be accepted, but they can be accepted.”
Amendment 51 in the Arkansas constitution lays out explicitly 5 different agencies that can use electronic signatures: state revenue offices, public assistance agencies, disability agencies, public libraries, and the Arkansas National Guard.
“Because those are permitted expressly, then it is not expressly permitted elsewhere, and thus not able to do it elsewhere,” Madison said.
Madison said the board’s reading of this amendment comes from the idea of negative implication.
“If a statue or law says you may do X in one portion of it,” Madison said, “but then it does not mention X in another portion of it, that means there’s a negative implication, you cannot do X in the other portion of it.
According to Madison, around three to four hundred Arkansans have already filled out a voter registration form using an electronic signature.
“If we don’t put the emergency rule in place while we go through the rule promulgation process, you have the potential of having thousands of people registered this way,” Madison said. “And then they go to vote in November and have problems voting because of their electronic signature on their application.”
Madison said the job of the election board is not to make policies, but to implement them.
“Our interpretation of the policy is that electronic signatures are permissible by certain groups,” Madison said, “and not by others and we’re trying create procedures and practices that effectuate that so that all voters are treated the same across the state.”
The permanent rule process will begin in the next week or so, and Madison said it’s important that they hear from Arkansans.
“I encourage everyone who has comments or thoughts on this to provide us public comments,” Madison said, “because we will address them. We will have a public hearing, and I want people to come and testify. We want to develop rules that are effective and uniform across the state so that everybody knows what the rules of the game are, and that all the voters are being treated the same.”
And if you have concerns about the policies themselves, remember that your local state representative and state senator are the ones who make policies in the first place.
