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Georgia county says more than 3,000 absentee ballots were mailed days before election

Posted on by Nargang
Georgia county says more than 3,000 absentee ballots were mailed days before election

MARIETTA, Ga. — Georgia’s third-largest county is late mailing more than 3,000 ballots to voters. a few days before the elections.

To deliver ballots on timeelection officials in Cobb County, north of Atlanta, were using U.S. Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery and sending ballots in prepaid express return envelopes.

“We want to maintain voter confidence by being transparent about the situation,” county Board of Elections Chairman Tori Silas said in a statement Thursday. “We are making every effort to send these ballots to the voters who requested them.”

Officials in Georgia’s Cobb County are late mailing more than 3,000 absentee ballots. Getty Images
Officials use US Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery to get the ballots out on time. Christopher Sadowski

Silas blamed the delay on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballot applications during the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.

However, a judge ruled Friday that Cobb County voters who receive their absentee ballots late can return them until Nov. 8, three days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Tuesday. the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The ruling came after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit to extend the deadline.

Late ballots have prepaid express return packages for voters. A?

Georgia voters have broken early turnout records since early voting began on October 15.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 3.8 million ballots had been cast, reflecting more than half of the state’s active voters, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. The number includes more than 238,000 absentees.

In Cobb County, election officials said voters whose absentee ballots were late can vote in person on last day of early voting Friday or Tuesday. The county election office planned to remain open to accept hand-delivered absentees through the weekend and into Monday.

People wait in line to vote on the last day of early voting at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia on November 1, 2024. AFP via Getty Images

However, the Board of Elections said more than 1,000 of the late mailed absentee ballots were sent to people outside of Georgia.

A county spokesman, Ross Cavitt, declined to comment Friday on how many, if any, of the late ballots still needed to be mailed, citing ongoing litigation.

The lawsuit by civil rights groups was filed on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they still had not received their absentee ballots in the mail as of Friday. The lawsuit said that although county election officials “have took some steps to help alleviate the problem, those actions are not enough to protect their right to vote.”