(CNN) — Georgia election officials must stop rejecting absentee ballots with voters’ signatures that do not appear to match those on record, a federal judge said Wednesday. Two federal lawsuits have charged that election officials in Gwinnett County, located northeast of Atlanta, have violated voters’ rights by rejecting hundreds of absentee ballots, some of which were tossed due to “signature mismatch” issues. US District Judge Leigh Martin May issued a proposed ruling that would prohibit election officials from rejecting absentee ballots due to alleged signature mismatches, but said the parties in the case would have until noon Thursday to comment on the instructions for handling those situations. The proposed order stated that county officials would be required to mark absentee ballots with signature mismatches as provisional, send voters pre-rejection notices and resolve issues within three days after Election Day. Sophia Lakin, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed one of the lawsuits, said that although Georgia election officials can suggest changes to the judge’s proposed instructions, the ruling shows a loosening of restrictions. “This ruling protects the people of Georgia from those who seek to undermine their right to vote. It’s a huge victory, especially with the midterms just days away,” Lakin said. Joe Sorenson, a spokesperson for Gwinnett County, said the county is reviewing the judge’s preliminary injunction order and will provide its comments to the court by Thursday. Katie Byrd, a spokesperson for the office of Georgia’s attorney general, said she is unable to comment on active litigation but said the office is aware of Thursday’s deadline. Both the secretary of state’s office and Brian Kemp campaign spokesman referred CNN to the attorney general’s office. Kemp, the secretary of state, is the Republican running for governor against Democratic former state Rep. Stacey Abrams. In a statement, Abrams campaign spokeswoman Abigail Collazo praised the ruling as a “step in the right direction.” “But there is still more work to be done to ensure every eligible ballot is counted,” she added. “Every eligible voter must be allowed to make their voice heard in our democracy, and we will continue to fight to ensure that each and every ballot cast by eligible Georgia voters will be counted.” In total, election officials in Georgia have rejected 157 absentee ballots for signature mismatch issues, according to state data analyzed by CNN Wednesday. More than 881,000 absentee ballots have been cast. Gwinnett County has also faced criticism from voting rights activists who say the rejections disproportionately affect minority voters. The county has rejected more than 600 absentee ballots as of Wednesday, though only a small fraction of those were tossed for signature mismatches. Others were rejected for missing birthdates, address discrepancies and other reasons. Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor, analyzed the rejected absentee ballots in Gwinnett County last week and found ballots cast by Asian Americans and African Americans were rejected at a higher rate than those submitted by whites. Some voters in Gwinnett County told CNN last week that they found the rejections confusing. Lilieth Walters, whose ballot was tossed due to a signature issue, said she did not know her ballot was rejected until CNN told her. “What was the issue with my signature?” she asked. “Maybe I didn’t sign the same way I normally do, but … a signature shouldn’t prevent one from voting.” Kemp in a debate on Tuesday night said he would not recuse himself from a potential recount and has refused calls from both Georgia Democrats and the Abrams campaign to resign his position. Abrams also accused Kemp, who has been the secretary of state for eight years, of creating “an atmosphere of fear around the right to vote in the state of Georgia.” CNN’s Drew Griffin contributed to this report.<doc-sep>The injunction specifically orders the Secretary of State’s office to inform local elections offices that they should not reject absentee ballots due to alleged signature mismatches. Instead, they’re ordered to mark the ballots as provisional and give voters a “pre-rejection notice” via first-class mail and email, when possible, as well as an opportunity to resolve the discrepancy. Absentee ballot applications with potential signature issues are to be treated similarly, according to the court. The judge’s order is retroactive, meaning it affects mail-in voters that were already rejected. In-person early voting in Georgia ends Nov. 2. Exact numbers are hard to calculate due to variations in how county elections offices report rejected ballots. But the order — which was the result of ongoing lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups — has the capacity to affect several hundred absentee ballots statewide. Kemp’s legal team has argued that changing the way elections officials review signatures on absentee ballots in the middle of the election season would add to those officials’ already full plate and “threaten to disrupt the orderly administration of elections.” In the order declining to stay her injunction, May referenced multiple times a statement that Chatham County Board of Registrars chairman Colin McRae submitted in support of the plaintiffs. McRae said his office had had “no significant difficulties” implementing the new rules since they were administered on Oct. 25. The absentee ballot litigation is just one part of a larger battle over voting rights playing out across Georgia. The issue has drawn national scrutiny to the state this election season and focused attention on Kemp's decision to continue as secretary of state, an office that oversees elections, even as he runs for governor. Voting and civil rights advocates, as well as his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams, have accused Kemp of voter suppression.<doc-sep>
A federal district judge in Georgia denied Secretary of State Brian Kemp's request to pause an injunction the judge ordered last week that prevents election officials from tossing out certain absentee ballots. Judge Leigh Martin May said in an order filed late Tuesday that delaying the injunction “would only cause confusion, as Secretary Kemp has already issued guidance in accordance with the injunction to county elections officials," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Kemp is also the GOP nominee for governor in next week's election. ADVERTISEMENT May said last week that she was blocking election officials in the state from throwing out absentee ballots when a resident's signature doesn't exactly match the signature on their voter registration card. Kemp had requested that May delay the injunction while he appeals the decision to a higher court, the Journal-Constitution reported. May's initial order came after a lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), against Kemp on behalf of the Georgia Muslim Voter Project. In her order she said ballots with signatures that aren't an exact match should be held by election officials and voters should be given the opportunity to resolve the discrepancy. “The Court finds that the public interest is best served by allowing qualified absentee voters to vote and have their votes counted,” she wrote in Tuesday's order, according to the Journal-Constitution. Kemp has faced calls to step aside as secretary of state while he runs for governor, given that he leads the office that oversees Georgia's elections. His Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, is among those who have called on him to resign. Abrams has also accused Kemp of voter suppression in the wake of a news report that said 53,000 voter registration applications are on hold because they failed to meet the state's "exact match" law. The statute says a voter's registration is considered pending if the information on their application isn't an exact match to the info on the state's Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. Of the 53,000 applications that are on hold, 70 percent of them are reportedly from black voters.