2024 elections: How verifying a mail ballot works

One reader recently reached out to the Las Vegas Review-Journal claiming there is no way for the authenticity of mail ballots to be verified. That is incorrect.

The Review-Journal reached out to Clark County’s leading election official, Registrar Lorena Portillo, to explain the verification process of mail ballots.

Nevada law requires election officials to verify the signature on the official mail ballot envelope by comparing the signature with what’s in the voter record, according to Portillo.

There are other verifications, as well, Portillo said. For instance, bar codes on the envelopes are specific to the voter and ensure the envelope matches with the current election, she said. Portillo said sometimes voters send their mail ballots using an old envelope from a previous election. In those cases, they must be handled in a manual process, she said.

A voter also may need to show their ID if there are discrepancies with a mail ballot and the voter records, Portillo said.

If the automated signature recognition software does not recognize the signature as valid, it goes through a manual process, and a bipartisan team reviews the signatures in the voter record to determine if they match, Portillo said. If they determine the signatures do not match, the ballot goes to the signature curing process, in which the county will alert the voter through email and text alerts if their signature needs verifying, Portillo said.

After the signature curing process is completed, the ballot goes one more time through an audit to make sure the election officials checked everything, she said.

“It’s various steps,” Portillo said. “It’s not just sending it in and we’re good to go. … The life of the ballot is not short.”

At least once a year, county clerks and all members of their staff who administer an election are required to complete a training class on forensic signature verification, according to Nevada law.

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes voters will forget that they sent in their mail ballot and then go to vote in person, Portillo said. The system stops the mail ballot from being accepted because the voter went to vote in person, she said.

“There’s many checks in place,” Portillo said.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.