{
  "slug": "petition-signature-integrity",
  "title": "Direct democracy runs on signatures nobody can check at scale",
  "summary": "Petition signatures are verified by comparing handwriting to a stale exemplar. That method misses forgery and rejects honest voters.",
  "lede": "A ballot initiative qualifies when enough registered voters sign a sheet of paper, and the state confirms it by comparing handwriting against a signature card that may be decades old. That method is simultaneously too weak to stop a determined forger and too strict on honest voters whose handwriting has changed. Both failures come from the same missing step.",
  "date": "2026-09-30",
  "reading_time": "16 min read",
  "category": "Regulated",
  "tags": [
    "petition signature fraud",
    "ballot initiative verification",
    "signature matching",
    "electronic petition",
    "election administration",
    "proof of human"
  ],
  "image": "https://cdn.twc.sh/images/igcache/Petition%20Signature%20Integrity/1200_630/blog.jpg",
  "url": "/blog/petition-signature-integrity.html",
  "wordcount": 3205,
  "related": [
    "public-comment-integrity",
    "esignature-proves-the-mailbox",
    "one-human-many-accounts"
  ],
  "schema": "Article"
}