How one state's simple UI change to verify signatures for early voting made it faster
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To cut down on the time it takes to verify signatures for early ballots, election officials in Arizona’s largest county made a simple UI change. All it took was less scrolling.
When people in Maricopa County vote early, they sign green affidavit envelopes that are scanned into a county system; election officials then compare that signature with the voter’s signature on file. The county uses an an enterprise-built, custom system designed in-house to do the comparisons digitally, but the previous version of the software required officials to scroll down to see the signature on file.
That scroll might have taken only a few seconds, but that can add up in a county where nearly 88% of the more than 2 million ballots cast in the 2024 election were cast early. That year, Maricopa County reviewed 973,029 early ballots sent by mail, and another 631,006 early ballots returned to a vote center or drop box.
