WASHINGTON — With Election Day around the corner, do you plan to mail-in your vote? If you do, there are some things you need to know about the ballots. Voting should be easy, but it's now complicated because of the pandemic.
Question:
In Maryland, will your mail-in ballot be thrown out if your signature doesn’t match the one on file with Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration?
Answer:
We’re going to answer this for our whole area. FALSE, in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. your mail-in ballot signature won’t be compared to your signature on file with the DMV. However, in D.C. it will be matched against your voter registration.
Our Sources:
DC’s Board of Elections, The Maryland State Board of Elections, and the Virginia Department of Elections.
Process:
We started in Maryland. In a statement the board of elections told us voters have to sign the oath on the return envelope. But, election officials tell us there’s no process to compare that signature against any other signature on file.
In Virginia, we also got a statement from Virginia’s Department of Elections. Their process is similar. You also have to sign the return envelope for the ballot, but it won’t be matched against any other signature on file. If you forget to sign all together, your local general registrar will contact you and you will have until November 6th to fix it.
In D.C., according to the District’s Board of Elections, you must sign the mail-in ballot envelope. The signature should match your original voter registration signature. A spokesperson tells us, if election officials find a problem with the signature, they’ll send you a document to sign to compare that signature against your ballot signature. you must return that by November 13th.