Ballot return deadline to be extended for over 1,000 Georgia voters not sent requested mail ballots

Georgia’s Cobb County will extend the ballot return deadline for roughly 1,000 absentee voters who were not sent their requested mail ballots.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration on Sunday after it announced it had failed to mail 1,046 requested absentee ballots in the critical battleground state. The election office’s director blamed it on human error.

Daniel White, an attorney for the county’s election board, said the parties submitted a proposed consent order to a judge on Monday afternoon following an emergency hearing that would extend the return deadline from when polls close to Nov. 14, although ballots must be postmarked by Election Day.

The judge signed the order later on Monday. The agreement paves the way for the affected voters to cast their ballots, which White indicated are now being overnighted in the mail.

“We’re going to give them notice and let them know that if they vote, their absentee ballot that has been overnighted to them, it still has to be sent by tomorrow,” White said at a press conference. 

“We can’t accept votes that aren’t postmarked by tomorrow, but if they can submit their ballot by tomorrow, we asked the court to extend the deadline until Nov. 14,” he added.

The order also requires the county to immediately notify the affected voters by email and text message about the changes.

Georgia is a major battleground in this year’s elections, particularly in the high-stakes battle for the Senate, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock locked in a tight race with GOP nominee Herschel Walker.

The county, which is Georgia’s third largest by population and is located near Atlanta, announced the problem on Friday and soon began overnighting ballots to those living outside the state.

White indicated the board had sent an additional round of ballots to other affected residents on Monday morning, leaving 276 people who have not yet voted and have not been sent their requested ballots out of the roughly 1,046 people initially affected.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Monday announced he opened an investigation into the county’s failure to mail the ballots.

“Elections officials are working hard to rectify the situation regarding absentee ballots in Cobb County, and I appreciate their efforts,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “But what happened is simply unacceptable, period.”

Raffensperger warned that extending the deadline for the ballots “could potentially hamper the very important post-election activities that are also required to be completed by time and date certain under Georgia law.”

White indicated the Nov. 14 deadline is in line with overseas absentee ballots and one day prior to when the votes will be certified. He blamed the mishap on a “purely clerical error.”

“If you mess up, we fess up,” White said. “We are being transparent. We said as soon as we discovered this, we did all we could to determine what the numbers were, who was affected, how we can get them ballots as quickly as possible.”