ATLANTA — Opponents of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center are continuing to collect signatures on their "Stop Cop City" petition.
They had originally planned to turn in those names on Monday but decided to wait after concerns over signature matching.
The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition has collected 104,000 signatures in support of a citywide referendum on the training facility.
THE QUESTION
Will the City of Atlanta verify signatures on the "Stop Cop City" petition?
THE SOURCES
- City of Atlanta Municipal Clerk's Office Memorandum
- Clerk Emeritus Foris Webb III-- one of the independent reviewers
- Political consultant Richard Bartolome-- one of the independent reviewers
THE ANSWER
Yes, the City of Atlanta does plan to check signatures on the "Stop Cop City" petitions.
WHAT WE FOUND
In a memorandum released by the City of Atlanta Municipal Clerk's Office, Clerk Emeritus Foris Webb III wrote they "have not considered and will not consider utilizing OCR-based exact match," for verifying signatures.
"We understand that signatures may vary, they may change over years, they may change due to medical reasons or people may change their signature," Webb said in a call on Wednesday. "That's the reason why we are not inclined to do signature exact matching."
Instead, the memorandum outlines a "step-by-step verification process conducted by independent third parties to ensure a process that is fair, inclusive, and transparent."
It starts with collecting the petitions, scanning the pages and processing all of them. Then, the independent team will be responsible for reviewing and verifying the names.
"Once individually designated and scanned, the completed lines will be reviewed to determine a) whether the name and other information present identifies and corresponds to a qualified Atlanta voter, and if so, b) whether the signature is that of the unique voter," the memorandum reads. "This will be a manual process, a line-by-line review, which will also include double-checking of each line and other quality control measures."
That review will rely on a team of people and the official state voter registration database.
"There will be multiple sets of eyes on every line throughout... any phase of this review process," said political consultant Richard Bartolomei, who is one of the independent reviewers. "Nothing is passed upon until multiple sets of eyes have seen it."
If at least two reviewers have a question about the "legibility and authenticity" of a particular signature, the release said a notice will be mailed to the individual to give them an opportunity to verify their signature. They will also make calls for anyone with a telephone number listed.