The FBI has investigated the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assess the validity of signatures on tens of thousands of mail-in ballot envelopes seized from Fulton County, Georgia. This initiative is part of the Trump administration’s ongoing reinvestigation of the 2020 presidential election.

According to internal communications reviewed by ProPublica and an agency technology specialist familiar with the work, the effort focuses on comparing signatures on ballot envelopes with those on other election documents, such as registration forms. In January, the FBI raided Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, collecting approximately 700 boxes of election materials, including about 150,000 mail-in ballots, of which roughly 116,000 were cast for Joe Biden.

The FBI has redirected 260 analysts from field offices nationwide to concentrate on the Fulton County probe, as detailed in an agency memo reviewed by ProPublica. Some FBI staff involved in the strategy have expressed concerns about the political pressure to prove fraud and have highlighted the limitations of large-scale signature analysis. They note that while signature comparisons have been used in individual voter fraud cases, they have not been applied on such a broad scale.

Experts have weighed in on the challenges of using AI for signature verification. Linton Mohammed, former president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, said, “Signatures are one of the most difficult forensic sciences, and I don’t think AI is going to be able to do this. Signatures vary — unlike DNA or fingerprints.”

Conversely, David Gerber, senior vice president at ParaScript, a company providing signature-matching technology, stated that current technology is advanced enough to “make your head explode.” However, Max Palmer, a Boston University professor who studies mail-in ballot signature matching, cautioned that “there’s a high degree of noise” in the materials the FBI has and questioned whether there is “enough information, enough signal, to do better.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, particularly alleging voter fraud in Georgia, where he lost to Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.

Sources