‘Unprepared’ Georgia county facing lawsuit rushes out 3,000 ballots as election nears
UPDATE: A Cobb County judge observed the lawsuit’s request Nov. 1 and ordered election officials to overnight mail all delayed ballots and count them if they are postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day and received by 5 p.m. Nov. 8.
Approximately 3,200 absentee ballots were overnighted to voters with prepaid express return envelopes, election officials said in a Nov. 1 news release.
“We appreciate the plaintiffs working with us on this solution. My clients support the order and the relief it provides,” said Daniel White, who represented four members of the Board of Elections and Registration.
The original story continues below.
Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit in Southern swing state Georgia after a key county said it was still working to mail more than 3,000 ballots after the state’s deadline.
The lawsuit, filed Nov. 1 by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia and Southern Poverty Law Center against Cobb County election officials, argues the delay risks those voters not being able to make the Nov. 5 deadline to return their ballots — which could be pivotal in a state President Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes in the 2020 election.
“These voters followed the right steps to elect their leaders, yet stand on the brink of disenfranchisement due to bureaucratic errors that the increased burdens on voters,” said Theresa Lee, attorney at the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.
As of Oct. 30, election officials were still working to send out more than 3,000 absentee ballots requested by the county’s deadline, the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration said in an Oct. 31 news release.
“Unfortunately, we were unprepared for the surge in requests and lacked the necessary equipment to process the ballots quickly,” said Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas.
Officials said the county had been averaging 440 ballot requests per day, but in the last week the requests increased to 750 per day. According to the release, 985 ballot requests were submitted on the deadline.
Elections Director Tate Fall said election workers needed to use in-house equipment for the last shipment of ballots, but the equipment malfunctioned, and the deadline for mailing the ballots passed.
The ballots will be sent out via USPS Express Mail or UPS Overnight Delivery by the morning of Nov. 1, the release said.
But, according to the lawsuit, this gives voters one business day to return their ballots and doesn’t guarantee postal carriers will get them back before polls close.
“The complaint demands that Cobb County overnight the undelivered absentee ballots and extend the return deadline to Nov. 8 — aligning it with the deadline to cure provisional ballots,” prosecutors said.
Battleground counties
Cobb County is one of 15 included in U.S. News’ 2024 battleground counties, a list spotlighting smaller areas across the country that have potential to be pivotal in the race’s final outcome between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
“If a party underperforms its historical vote share in a key county, it risks losing the state and larger national race to 270 electoral votes,” according to the outlet.
In 2020, Cobb County played a key role in helping Biden win Georgia, experts said, which was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state in 28 years. Fifty-six percent of voters in the county cast their ballots for Biden, giving him a raw vote lead of 56,387 in Cobb County.
According to the list, 11 of the 15 counties — including Cobb County — are located in the seven presidential swing states.
Other key counties on the list, not located in swing states, include Miami-Dade County in Florida and Fort Bend County and Tarrant County in Texas.
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 1:24 PM with the headline "‘Unprepared’ Georgia county facing lawsuit rushes out 3,000 ballots as election nears."
