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A Federal District Court Judge announced that he would order Georgian election officers not to send ballot papers or requests for postal voting when the voter's signature does not match the signature of his or her card. 'elector.
Judge Leigh Martin May of the US District Court for North Georgia District said that election officials should first inform voters before they can reject ballot papers with different signatures.
May gave Thursday to the Georgian State Secretary as well as to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who had filed a complaint on behalf of the Georgia Muslim Voter Project against the secretary of state. Georgian state Brian Kemp and county clerks, to respond to his proposal.
The judge stated that she would then review their suggestions and immediately issue an injunction.
"This is not meant to be an opportunity to re-evaluate the merits of entering the injunction – only its form," she said.
The Republican state secretary runs against Democrat Stacey Abrams in a tight race for governor.
Kemp's office sent The Hill's requests for comment to the Attorney General's office, which stated that it was unable to comment on an ongoing dispute.
The pursuit of the ACLU challenges the state law that allows election officials to reject a vote by correspondence if they think the voter's documents do not match.
The ACLU has stated that the law does not require election officials to be trained in handwriting analysis or signature analysis, and that there are no laws or regulations that provide for functional standards to distinguish of an author of the other variants suggesting two different authors.
The civil rights group has also argued in court that voters should be notified first and given the opportunity to appeal before the vote is rejected.
State officials, however, asserted that there was no constitutional constitutional right to vote by distance vote and that, as a result, due process guarantees are not available. 39 apply only to the extent that the state of Georgia has conferred the right to vote by remote vote through the process defined during its election code.
May seemed to disagree.
"After creating a regime of absentee voters through which qualified voters can exercise their fundamental right to vote, the state must now provide absent voters with adequate constitutional protection, in accordance with the Constitution," he said. she said.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Sophia Lakin, a lawyer with the ACLU's voting rights project, called the development a huge victory.
"This decision protects the people of Georgia from those who seek to undermine their right to vote," she said.
Updated at 16:54
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