Georgia's secretary of state is asking a federal judge to suspend her order governing election officials' handling of absentee ballots and applications that have mismatched signatures while he appeals it.
U.S. District Judge Leigh May on Thursday issued a final order instructing the state to stop rejecting the ballots and applications because of a signature mismatch without first giving voters a chance to fix the problem.
She outlined a procedure to allow voters to resolve alleged signature discrepancies that she said must be used for the Nov. 6 midterm elections for all absentee ballots and applications that have a signature that doesn't match the one on file.
Lawyers for Secretary of State Brian Kemp wrote that last-minute changes to the election procedures "threaten to disrupt the orderly administration of elections."
They asked that the judge's order be put on hold pending appeal.