LANSING (AP) — A judge has struck down a state directive that encourages local election clerks to be very flexible when reviewing signatures on absentee ballots.

The decision doesn’t apply to the recent fall election, of course, because it’s over. But the case is significant because the policy from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson apparently would have applied to future elections, too, Judge Christopher Murray said last week.

Murray of the Court of Claims said Benson’s directive was illegal because it didn’t go through a formal rule-making process that involves the Legislature.

Benson told clerks last fall that they must presume a signature on an absentee ballot envelope or a ballot application is valid.

Signatures “should be considered questionable” only if they differ “in multiple, significant and obvious respects from the signature on file,” Benson said at the time. More than 3 million absentee ballots were cast in the November election.