19:63-17.2 Educational materials for "evaluators."
5. a. The Secretary of State shall prepare educational materials regarding the provisions of section 17 of P.L.2009, c.79 (C.19:63-17) that all county boards of elections persons handling ballots shall be required to read or view prior to the election. The materials shall provide clear information regarding the standards for acceptance and rejection of mail-in ballots and the safe holding of all materials in the case of rejection.
b. Prior to each election, the Secretary of State shall direct all county boards of elections and their members, agents, employees, and representatives, who shall be collectively known as the "evaluators," and who are responsible for authenticating or verifying mail-in ballots pursuant to section 17 of P.L.2009, c.79 (C.19:63-17), or authenticating or verifying provisional ballots pursuant to section 19 of P.L.1999, c.232 (C.19:53C-13), to comply with the provisions of subsection c. of this section.
c. The Secretary of State and each county board of elections shall ensure that all evaluators receive, and are directed to comply with, written guidance stating as follows:
(1) when verifying signatures, evaluators shall keep in mind that everyone writes differently, and no one signs their name exactly the same way twice;
(2) some variation in signatures is to be expected;
(3) many factors can lead to signature variance, including, but not limited to, age, disability, underlying health conditions, writing implement or surface, level of concentration, and educational background;
(4) according to studies, evaluators are more likely to declare genuine signatures to be non-genuine than they are to accept a non-genuine signature as genuine, and the goal is to prevent these errors in signature verification; and
(5) evaluators shall presume that the documents were signed by the same person and shall accept a signature as valid unless there is a clear discrepancy that cannot be reasonably explained.
d. The Secretary of State shall, not later than 14 days prior to the election, publish the signature matching guidelines required under subsection c. of this section which each evaluator shall be required to follow in determining if mail-in voter signatures match.
e. The Secretary of State shall, at least 30 days prior to the election, conduct a voter education campaign to inform voters about the signature matching and ballot curing provisions established by this act, P.L.2020, c.70, which campaign shall also exhort voters to update their contact information with their respective county board of elections, including their email address and telephone number, to enable the county board to contact the voter in case the need arises for the voter to cure their ballot.
L.2020, c.70, s.5.