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In today’s world, voting by mail is increasingly popular and a proven tactic for increasing turnout. In some states it’s the only way to vote.

Unfortunately, North Carolina lawmakers keep making it harder. Last year, the legislature required election officials to run a pilot program in 10 counties in which computer software was used to scan every voter’s mailed ballot signature to see if it matched their original registration form. This, despite the obvious problem predicted by critics that many people’s signatures — especially older and disabled voters — have changed dramatically over the years.

Not surprisingly, the experiment proved to be an expensive waste of time that was plagued by technical problems and uncovered hardly any problem ballots.

Even a notorious conservative election integrity crusader admitted the scheme isn’t going to work.

The bottom line: North Carolina law already requires absentee voters to include a copy of their photo ID and have two individuals or a notary witness their ballot. Lawmakers should ditch the wasteful signature verification scheme.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.