ATLANTA– Thousands of voters in Georgia’s third-largest county who received their ballots late will not get an extension to return them, the state’s highest court decided Monday.
Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, has not mailed any absentee ballots to about 3,400 voters who had requested it until the end of last week. Georgia law requires absentee ballots to be received before the polls close on Election Day. But a lower court judge ruled last week that the ballots in question could be counted if they were received by Friday, three days after Election Day, provided they were postmarked by Tuesday.
The Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling means affected Cobb County residents must vote in person on Election Day, Tuesday, or bring their absentee ballots to the county election office by 7 p.m. that day.
The Supreme Court ruling directs county election officials to notify affected voters via email, text message and in a public notice on the county elections board’s website. And it directs officials to keep all ballots received after the Election Day deadline, but before 5 p.m. Friday, separated and sealed.
Board of Elections President Tori Silas said the board will comply with the Supreme Court’s order, but it remains to be seen whether ballots received after Election Day will be counted. The order only addressed a motion to stay, so election officials will have to wait for the court’s final ruling to see if votes received after Tuesday will be counted, she said in a statement.
To deliver the ballots on time, election officials in Cobb County used express mail from the U.S. Postal Service and overnight delivery from UPS, and mailed the ballots with prepaid express return envelopes. The Board of Elections said more than 1,000 of the late absentee ballots were sent to people outside Georgia.
Silas last week blamed the delay in mailing out ballots on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballots the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.
The original ruling extending the deadline stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they had not received absentee ballots in the mail as of Friday.