Georgia State Senator Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming) received an absentee ballot after submitting an application using a different signature than on his photo ID. The representative submitted his application on November 28 to vote in the runoff election. He received a ballot without any issues on December 15.
Dolezal tweeted a comparison picture between the non-matching signatures on his photo ID and his absentee ballot application.
“I tested the signature match for absentee ballots in Georgia and it failed,” Dolezal wrote. “I’m tired of the deniers saying there is ‘no evidence’ sig match doesn’t work. Here is your evidence. Is it any surprise only 2,011 signatures were rejected out of 1,322,529 in November? We must fix this.”
I tested the signature match for absentee ballots in Georgia and it failed. I'm tired of the deniers saying there is "no evidence" sig match doesn't work. Here is your evidence. Is it any surprise only 2,011 signatures were rejected out of 1,322,529 in November? We must fix this. pic.twitter.com/oOcZxuRfLx
— Greg Dolezal (@dolezal4senate) December 15, 2020
In an interview with The Georgia Star News, Dolezal explained that he took initiative to test signature matching because he suspected that elected officials were making broad claims without examining the evidence themselves.
“I chuckle, but it really is appalling. What’s appalling to me is we have all this question around signature match and all these elected officials saying that there’s been no evidence of any issues. I decided to test the system, and I kind of made the most ridiculous example I could, using myself,” stated Dolezal.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Monday that their office would conduct an audit of absentee ballot signatures in Cobb County, followed by a statewide audit. However, Raffensperger noted in a press conference that the decision to hold these audits wasn’t because signature matching was flawed.
Dolezal told The Star News that Raffensperger’s claim may not be entirely accurate.
“I don’t know how he can make that statement. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t looked at any signatures. The reality is, he needs to cast a wider net for the audit,” stated Dolezal. “The interesting thing is, there’s 159 counties in Georgia, and the counties handle signature matching. I think my board of directors is fantastic. My suspicion is that, if my county missed that application with a pretty egregious signature mistake, then I wonder about other counties. Just anecdotally, I think we get the best things done in our county. We’ve got the best schools, and we’re the wealthiest county in the state. So I would suspect that if we did the signature audit everywhere like we’ve been asking for the last month, we’d find more issues.”
Dolezal told The Star News that nobody from the secretary of state’s office has contacted him about the signature match error yet.
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
