Florida officials on Monday said they would not challenge the decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, which adds a new duty for the state's 67 election supervisors as they enter the final stretch before a heavily contested presidential election.
Walker ruled that county election offices should notify voters if their signature on a vote-by-mail ballot and their voter registration forms don't match.
The Florida Democratic Party sued the state saying that voters could be disenfranchised because election officials can discard the ballot if the signature doesn't match the one already on file.
[...] more than 23,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected by Florida election officials during the 2012 presidential election in which Obama carried the state by slightly more than 74,000 votes.
Judge Walker, citing the contentious 2000 Florida election in which George W. Bush carried the state over Al Gore by 537 votes, said he needed to act because the current practice was enough of a burden to affect the outcome of an election and "by extension, our country's future."
