Guess what? Electronic signatures aren’t new to California politics. In most counties of this state, records of voter registration are kept in electronic form. So when the clerk’s office checks to see if your pen-and-paper signature on an initiative petition matches the signature they have on file, the signature they’re comparing it with is an electronic one.
I learned more about this through reading the fascinating court filings in the case of Ni v. Slocum, a new lawsuit that asks a superior court judge in San Mateo County to find that an electronic signature on the marijuana initiative – Michael Ni signed it electronically with the touch screen of his iPhone – is valid and should be counted. The county’s chief elections officer, Warren Slocum, ruled the signature invalid.

