[MERCURY NEWS]The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters made history Friday when it allowed eight county residents to register to vote by writing their signatures on iPads, iPhones and other mobile touch-screen devices.
It was the first time an election official in the United States, possibly in the world, permitted anyone to register to vote that way. Voting rights advocates cheered the news as a major milestone in making it easier for millions of people to register to vote, but critics worry that digital signatures could be difficult to verify and pave the way for voter fraud.
County Registrar Jesse Durazo made the decision to permit the electronic signatures after the county board of supervisors and county counsel gave their blessings to the proposal by Verafirma, a Silicon Valley company whose partners include San Jose political strategist Jude Barry.
The firm has been stymied in court in its efforts to allow Californians to sign initiative petitions on mobile devices rather than on paper petitions in front of supermarkets. So Durazo’s decision was a welcome victory for the fledgling company.
“It’s truly awesome and fantastic that a county registrar is allowing this to happen. It’s a huge, huge step,” said Thomas Bates, vice president for civic engagement at Rock the Vote, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that registered 2 million new voters in the 2008 election. “We’re supportive of anything that modernizes the antiquated voter-registration system in our country.” —Ken McLaughlin, San Jose Mercury News