Election officials in Cobb County, Georgia — one of the top battleground counties in the 2024 presidential election, per U.S. News — are scrambling to deliver more than 3,000 absentee ballots past the state’s Oct. 25 deadline, prompting lawsuits from the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party of Georgia and civil rights groups.
“Plaintiffs and more than 3,000 other lawfully registered Cobb County voters are on the brink of disenfranchisement in the November 5 election because the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration was unable to issue their absentee ballots on time,” a complaint reads from the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia and Southern Poverty Law Center, which was filed on Friday in Cobb County Superior Court.
“This occurred twice in 2022, and in both instances, this Court granted judicial relief to protect the affected voters’ fundamental right to vote,” notes the DNC and DPG in a separate complaint filed Friday, which was first posted by Democracy Docket. “In this instance, the Cobb County Board of Elections failed to timely send more than 3,000 absentee ballots in accordance with Georgia law. Cobb County has publicly admitted to missing the statutory deadline. Judicial relief is thus required to remedy this legal violation and prevent disenfranchisement.”
Both lawsuits argue that Cobb County election officials violated state law by failing to send mail-in ballots within three days to voters who made absentee ballot requests before the statewide deadline. The suits outline how Atlanta suburb’s Board of Elections publicly admitted on Oct. 31 that it had not sent the aforementioned ballots on time, nearly a week after the Oct. 25 deadline.
“As of Wednesday, more than 3,000 absentee ballots requested by last Friday’s deadline had not been mailed,” election officials said in an online statement, blaming the mishap on an alleged “surge” of last-minute absentee ballot applications.
“Absentee ballot requests had been averaging around 440 per day, but in the last week, that number surged to 750 per day, with 985 requests submitted on Friday’s deadline,” the officials said. “Elections workers will send most of them via USPS Express Mail or UPS Overnight Delivery by Friday morning. These ballots will include prepaid express return envelopes to ensure voters can return them by Tuesday’s deadline.”
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But while the Cobb County officials promised to make things right, the complaints against them both say it wouldn’t matter.
“Even if Defendants were to send most of the ballots on Friday, November 1, with guaranteed next-day delivery, and even if those voters in fact received their ballots the next day (on Saturday, November 2), that would only leave those voters with one business day to return their ballots and absolutely no guarantee that postal carriers will return them before polls close on November 5,” the ACLU complaint says. “Although Defendants have taken some steps to help alleviate the problem, those actions are not nearly enough to safeguard their right to vote.”
Cobb County Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas and Elections Director Tate Fall offered explanations Thursday as to what apparently led to the flub.
“After our vendor’s final run on Friday, we needed to utilize our in-house equipment for the final shipment of ballots, but the equipment was not working properly,” Fall said in a statement. “By the time we got the equipment online, the deadline for mailing the ballots had passed, prompting us to work with the US Postal Service and UPS to take extraordinary measures.”
Silas added, “We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation. We are taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them. Unfortunately, we were unprepared for the surge in requests and lacked the necessary equipment to process the ballots quickly.”
For both suits filed against the county, the involved parties are asking that Cobb County’s Board of Elections extend the ballot-receipt deadline for all of the affected voters — moving it from Nov. 5 to Nov. 8, which is the same deadline that overseas voters have to return their ballots. They also ask that the county be required to segregate any of the affected ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day to ensure that they don’t become subject to “post-election legal challenges,” according to DNC and DPG officials.
“Given Cobb County’s violation of its statutory and constitutional duties and the imminent election, the Court should declare that Cobb County’s breach of its duty to timely send absentee ballots violated Georgia law and the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by the Georgia Constitution,” the DNC and DPG complaint says. “Unless this Court intervenes, the DNC, DPG and their members will face the irreparable harm of disenfranchisement in the 2024 election. The public interest demands that the affected voters have the opportunity to vote and have their vote counted.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach Cobb County election officials for comment on Friday were unsuccessful.
Cobb, according to U.S. News, is one of the top counties to watch in the 2024 presidential election as it continues to be a pivotal piece of political real estate in Georgia — a major battleground state.
Shifts in racial and ethnic diversity have flipped the county from red to blue in the past two elections after Mitt Romney won in 2012.
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