Ronald DeSantis had just turned thirty when the emerging prosecutor jailed a Mayport Navy sailor for six years on child pornography charges. DeSantis’ signature on the 2008 plea agreement was sharp and elegant: a sharp ‘R’ to begin with; a stately “D” for Dion, his middle name; and “DeSantis” written with an artistic flourishing.
Over the next 13 years, DeSantis’ signature would evolve from the neat course of his youth to the hurried one he regularly uses as governor of Florida today. Along the way, he drops the middle initial. He changes the appearance of the ‘R’ and then switches it back. A quick bickering and a big blow replaced most of the letters in his surname.
Handwriting experts say no two person’s signatures are the same. That’s why Florida election officials have had all the signatures at their disposal for years – sometimes more than a dozen – when they confirm a voter’s signature on a ballot box.
DeSantis wants to reinstate the years of practice. Voting by postal signature “must match the most recent signature” with the state election department, DeSantis said in February. A bill passed by the Florida Senate would make it the law.
Some election officials believe that limiting signature samples could make it more difficult to confirm the identity of voters who prefer to vote by ballot. Signatures change over time, they say, and are often influenced by someone’s choice of pen, writing surface, fatigue, or health. A new requirement for a one-on-one match could lead to more rejected ballots.
DeSantis’ own John Hancock underwent a transformation during his reign, as evidenced by 16 of his signatures issued by the Tampa Bay Times between 2008 and now available from the sources.
Experts and Electoral Officers Who Have DeSantis’ Signature History for the Times said some of the changes in his workmanship could pose problems for election workers, especially if it was limited to one point of comparison. In some cases, it is possible that the vote could have been rejected, they said.
“It shows why it’s better to have multiple signatures than to have one,” said Tom Vastrick, a forensic document investigator at Apopka.
The Times sent DeSantis’s office samples of his autographs along with a summary of the opinions of experts interviewed for this story. His spokesmen did not respond to a request for comment on the analysis, nor did they say why this amendment is necessary.
The new restrictions on compliance with signatures have been incorporated into a larger bill, sponsored by Senator Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala, that will review the vote on the inclusion. Baxley said the verification process is simplified when comparing the signature on the ballot paper with the most recent registration with the state.
“This is the latest and most likely way they are signing things now,” Baxley said. “That’s the key.”
The proposal is part of a package of voting rights legislation that Republicans in Florida are driving this session to the state’s electoral system, although DeSantis praised Florida for running its 2020 election. “As Florida has done, I think it inspires confidence, I think elections should be held,” DeSantis said at the time.
Another five months later, Florida joined other GOP-controlled states to propose restrictions on voting. These include restrictions on ballot papers, a form of voting that former President Donald Trump used as a resident of Florida but mocked in his failed attempt to block the election.
The bill is scheduled to vote for a committee on Wednesday. According to Baxley, there may be changes.
The past and the present
The signature on the state documents for DeSantis’s first congressional campaign in 2012 looks just like the one he regularly scratches about executive action these days.
Richard Orsini, a Jacksonville Beach forensic document investigator, teaches election officials how to spot the agreements.
The initial precipitation of the “R” in “Ron” corresponds to the two signatures, he said. And the finishing touch in both samples is a running ‘s’ that winds in a clockwise direction over the last name. Despite other differences, Orsini said it would be reasonable to conclude that these signatures belong to the same person.
Orsini and other handwriting experts put lifelong knowledge into their hours-long training sessions with election workers and recruitment councils – the volunteers who quickly decide whether to reject or accept a signature on the signature. One of the wisdoms they share is the importance of having multiple samples to make a fair determination.
‘When I get a call from a lawyer for a disputed will, I ask it: I need the best copy of the requested document signature, and then I need 10 to 20 uncontested, known general signatures that you as close to the date of the disputed signature, ”Orsini said. “This is my first request.”
These additional examples can help election workers if they come across a signature like DeSantis adopted as a U.S. representative.
This signature appears on a 2017 letter from DeSantis written to former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Unlike previous signatures or its current one, the finish line is left-handed, mark on Vastrick.
“It really strikes me,” he said.
Herb Polson, a former member of the St. more recently.
“If these were the only two I had to choose from, I would have had problems with the two,” Polson said. “It’s a very different style from the start. This in itself can lead me to say, ‘Ha, it does not look like that of a year ago.’ “
LX.com, an NBC news website, reported Tuesday that DeSantis’ 2016 ballot paper was rejected because Flagler County officials consider his signature does not match the one filed with the state.
Under Florida law, voters have an opportunity to have it rectified at their local election office, a process called “ballot paper.” When DeSantis tried to cure his mood in 2016, it was also turned down, reports LX.
The most recent signature for many voters is perhaps the one they used when signing their driver’s license at an office in the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The signature is often recorded on an older digital path with a stylus – not with a pen, such as how a ballot paper is signed.
Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida, studies the application of corresponding laws by voters. His research has shown that provinces regularly apply signature adjustment rules unequally, and that students and minorities are likely to reject their ballot papers due to a mismatch.
“It’s really stupid that you want to limit the signature to compare,” Smith said. DeSantis’ “own signatures show the reason for that.”
Instead of restricting signatures or relying on a digital facsimile, it would be more helpful for people to sign their name ten times in ink when registering to vote, Vastrick said.
In response to these concerns, Rep. Blaise Ingoglia last week amended his voting bill to allow election officials to use a signature from the past four years on the file. Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, said the restriction is necessary “to ensure that no signatures are done where there are 20 different signature duplicates from 20 years back.”
State Representative Fentrice Driskell, a Democrat from Tampa, said the amended bill “is better than what we had before,” but she added, “It seeks to correct something that has not been broken.”
“Our voice workers have been trained to use multiple signatures,” she said, “and it seems completely ineffective to change the procedures for that.”
Election security?
Lawmakers, students and teachers surrounded DeSantis in May 2019 when he signed the highest policy priority of his first year in office: a massive expansion of the state’s school proof program. After covering a blue Sharpie, DeSantis flashes the signed bills for the cameras.
If the signature appears on an email, an election worker will have a hard time matching a single sample, said Ion Sancho, the former Leon County election supervisor.
“I saw them having problems, and it would probably be rejected,” Sancho said. “That’s one of the reasons you need more evidence.”
Polson agreed.
“It’s more than a reach for me,” he said. “I will try hard to confirm that.”
DeSantis often voted by mail in Florida, including the Republican primary in August 2020. After Trump’s months-long crusade against consent in 2020, DeSantis made it his priority to place restrictions on the popular voting method. Most attention has focused on DeSantis’ proposals to eliminate ballot boxes and a new requirement for people to re-register annually to vote by mail.
DeSantis said these measures are necessary to secure the election. He said less about why he wanted to change the rules for the signature adjustment.
“If there are ways to strengthen signature verification, we need to do the same,” he said in February in West Palm Beach.
Smith said restricting signatures could have the opposite effect on election safety. Fewer signatures means less evidence to confirm a positive agreement.
“If you’re interested in electoral integrity, do not want more signatures to confirm the announcement?” Smith said. “Unless that’s not really your intention.”