Last year, Howard County, Maryland, rejected 87% of the signatures on a referendum petition, because the Howard County Board of Elections believed that a recent decision of the Maryland State Court of Appeals means that petition signatures are invalid if they aren’t exact matches of that voter’s signature on the voter registration form.

Proponents of the referendum filed a lawsuit against this policy in both state and federal court. The federal case lost in U.S. District Court in October 2009. Proponents of the referendum have just filed this brief in the 4th circuit. The brief is 78 pages long. Pages 44-46 explain the practical problems with the Board of Elections’ policy. The vast majority of voters don’t remember exactly how they filled out a voter registration form, which sometimes was an action they had taken decades earlier. And even if they do remember whether they used a middle initial, or used their entire middle name, or whether they put down, “Jr.” or “Sr.” or “III”, or similar additions to the name, the petition form space for printing one’s name is very small. It isn’t easy to fit a full name into the space for printing one’s name. So, to make one’s printed name fit, signers typically use abbreviations, accepted shortened forms of longer names, such as “Wm.” for “William”, or else they use nicknames, such as “Bill” for “William.” So, all those signatures are invalid. Page 47 of the brief has a useful list of court precedents that have ruled that exact name matches are not required.