Vote counting in Nevada has been thrown into chaos because young people cannot sign their own names, a state official has said.
Absentee ballots in the state require a voter’s signature to match with signatures already on file in state or federal databases.
Roughly 13,000 mail-in ballots have been rejected across Nevada because the signatures on their ballot did not match the signatures in the system, secretary of state Francisco Aguilar said on Tuesday.
The signatures of younger voters did not always match what was on their driver’s licences, he added.
“It’s mostly the fact that young people don’t have signatures these days,” he explained. “And when they did register to vote through the automatic voter registration process, they signed a digital pad … and that became their licence signature.”
State officials were “frantically” reaching out to young voters to rectify the issue, US media reported.
“We need to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard,” Mr Aguilar said outside a Las Vegas voting site.
He said his office was sending guidance to counties across the state to ensure the signature verification process was “being applied equally across the state”.
According to reports, the number of rejected ballots in Nevada is much higher than in previous years.
Mr Aguilar expressed fears that the sheer number of ballots requiring fixing could mean the state would be late in declaring which presidential candidate was victorious.
“When you start to look at the data and you start to realise how high it is, it makes you nervous, because, again, these races are so close, the margins are so slim, that I don’t want to look at the numbers tonight and know that we have to wait for ballots to be cured.”
Votes in Nevada have until Nov 12 to correct a mismatched signature.