The Ward County Auditor’s Office has found few mismatched signatures as it has begun comparing handwriting on ballots and applications, according to Ward County Auditor Devra Smestad.

However, Smestad reminds voters yet to turn in ballots to use both the sleeve and envelope and sign the envelope. The county has received some ballots without envelope signatures and those are returned to the voter to be completed, she said.

A bigger concern is ballots dropped into dropboxes in only a ballot sleeve, without the outer envelope that must be signed. Smestad said her office has no way of knowing whose ballot is in the sleeve so no way to contact the voter or count a voter as having voted. As a result, those ballots must be rejected. As of Thursday, the county received three sleeve-only ballots without signatures.

If there are problems and voters have included a day-time phone number on their ballot application, the Auditor’s Office can contact the voters, but Smestad said the vast majority of applications do not list a phone number.

Ballots with discrepancies in signatures are set aside for review by the canvassing board that will meet June 15 to certify election results. Smestad said the board has in the past given the benefit of the doubt to the voters and rejected only ballots with clearly different signers.

– Jill Schramm