This happened in Roanoke, which is left leaning. Republicans are going all out to cheat in this election.
Edit: Here is the law on tampering with ballots in Virginia. Class 5 felony
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter10/section24.2-1009/
For mail-ins, yeah, you sign it to do the final “I authorize this document to be my vote”.
If you don’t authorize it, it’s not legally your vote.
NY requires you to also sign the registration book when you vote in person.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ELN/8-304
There’s a difference, signing the book is done before you vote in person in ny, and is not associated with your ballot or who you voted for. So in person there’s no way to know who you voted for.
For mail-in, you don’t sign the ballot itself. You sign the envelope, which is used to validate / track who voted, but is then separated from the actual ballot before counting so there’s no way to track who you voted for.
The person who sent the ballot did this. The assholes that want to fuck with the election are actively trying to get these positions.