Judge signs order extending deadline for Cobb County absentee voters who weren’t mailed ballots

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Cobb County Superior Court judge signed an order that extended the deadline for when some Cobb County voters’ absentee ballots could be returned.

This comes after the ACLU of Georgia filed a lawsuit.

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The lawsuit asked to send ballots overnight to hundreds of voters who still need their absentee ballots and move the deadline from 7 p.m. on Election Day to November 14, which is the same deadline for absentee voters in the military and overseas.

A judge held an emergency hearing Monday after more than a thousand absentee ballots we never mailed in Cobb County.

“We are hoping this agreement at least gets to voters who need this information,” said Rahul Garabadu with the ACLU of Georgia.

Cobb County is trying to get the message out to voters who still haven’t received their absentee ballot about what their options are.

Cobb County said when the county discovered the more than one thousand voters who didn’t receive the absentee ballots, they started to overnight some ballots.

But as of Monday, there were still some who have not received theirs.

Cobb County said after analyzing the last batch of Advance In-Person voting data, the number of voters who may not have received replacement ballots as of Monday evening is down to 276.

Cobb County’s Election Director Janine Eveler said the issue was completely human error.

She acknowledged Friday that workers made critical errors on two different days in October.

In a letter to the elections board, the director wrote, “I am sorry that this office let these voters down. Many of the absentee staff have been averaging 80 or more hours per week, and they are exhausted. Still, that is no excuse for such a critical error.”

She also blamed a shortened window for processing absentee ballots under Georgia’s new election law.

The ACLU of Georgia said under the agreement, the deadline for when these ballots can be received for the 1,000 or so voters affected has been extended to November 14th.

“Which is the date for military and oversee voters and that they will have an opportunity to vote what’s called a federal write-in absentee ballot as well,” said Garabadu.

That means if you are one of those 1,000 or so voters in Cobb County affected, you can fill out the federal write-in absentee ballot.

Or you can mail in your absentee ballot if you receive it by Election Day.

“They’ll still have to cast a ballot that is postmarked by Election Day but if the elections office does not have it by tomorrow, they will have until Monday, November 14th,” said Garabadu.

The county is working to reach out to all those impacted so they know their options.

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