Florida judge gives voters 2 more days to correct mismatched signature issues

As election officials in Florida prepare to wrap up their machine recount, a federal judge has now given voters who had their ballots thrown out due to mismatched signatures time to resolve the issue.

This decision affects 4,000 or more mail-in and provisional ballots, which were rejected because the voter's signature didn't exactly match the signature on record, reports The Washington Post. The deadline for Florida's machine recount comes on Thursday, but those whose ballots were rejected due to mismatching signatures now have until Saturday at 5 p.m. to have their ballot "cured" so their vote can still count.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is behind Republican Gov. Rick Scott in the closely-watched Senate race by around 12,000 votes, wanted the matching signature requirement waived entirely, but the judge did not allow for that. However, he said that because the deadline to resolve issues with mismatched signatures was 5 p.m. on Nov. 5, but the deadline to submit a mail-in ballot was 7 p.m. on Nov. 6, many voters weren't given time to respond if their ballots were rejected.

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Scott, who leads Nelson by about 0.15 percentage points, is appealing Thursday's ruling, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Meanwhile, in the governor's race, former Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) currently leads Democrat Andrew Gillum by about 34,000 votes, or 0.40 percentage points.