U.S. judge orders two Georgia counties to halt voter purge ahead of Senate runoff

FILE PHOTO: A man points out hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes to a voter after she cast her ballot in the U.S. Senate runoff elections on the first day of early voting in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., December 14, 2020. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday ordered two Georgia counties to reverse a decision removing thousands of voters from the rolls ahead of Jan. 5 runoff elections that will determine which political party controls the U.S. Senate.

The counties seemed to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations, the judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner, said in her order filed late on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.