What does a notary need to verify before performing a notarization?

A notary's primary responsibility is to ensure the authenticity of the transaction they are witnessing, which fundamentally revolves around verifying the identity of the signer. This is crucial because the notary must ascertain that the individual appearing before them is indeed the person they claim to be, thereby preventing fraud and ensuring the integrity of the notarization process.

The notary achieves this by requesting valid identification, such as a driver's license or passport, which should feature the signer's photograph, signature, and current address. This step is pivotal as notarizations are meant to protect the public by confirming that all parties involved in the transaction are who they say they are.

The other options, while potentially relevant in different contexts, do not fulfill the essential requirement of identity verification necessary for a valid notarization. For instance, a document's expiration date might influence whether the notarization is necessary at that time, but it does not affect the identification of the signer during the notarization process. Similarly, the signing location can be important for proper procedure but does not relate to confirming the signer's identity, and signature style could be relevant to the documents but is not a primary concern for a notary when verifying identity.