Cobb County

Absentee ballots hand-delivered to more than 100 Cobb County voters following mistake

By Michele Newell
By Michele Newell

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A judge signed off on an order to hand deliver ballots to more than 100 voters in Cobb County.

Their absentee ballots were supposed to come overnight and never arrived.

Channel 2 Cobb County bureau reporter Michele Newell learned the Cobb County Board of Elections office has been working around the clock to get absentee ballots to the remaining group of voters who never received theirs.

“All of the ballots that were issued yesterday were issued with a prepaid return label such that they could’ve complete it, turn right around and send it back to us via express mail,” Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration Chair Tori Silas said.

County officials discovered more than 1,000 absentee ballots were never mailed in October due to a staff member’s mistake.

They spent the weekend mailing absentee ballots to hundreds who were impacted.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Cobb County Board of Elections on Sunday.

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On Monday, both parties agreed on a consent order to help impacted voters.

That agreement said absentee ballots postmarked Tuesday can arrive in Cobb County as late as Nov. 14 and still be counted.

Another part of it included overnighting absentee ballots on Monday to the remaining 276 voters who still didn’t receive theirs.

“As of this morning there were 128 outstanding voters on that list who were not able to get those ballots overnighted,” said Rahul Garabadu with the ACLU.

“We worked diligently into the late hours and really were limited by the UPS deadline for next day delivery,” Silas said.

A judge signed off on an amended consent order on Tuesday to get the remaining number of absentee ballots to voters who still needed theirs.

“The balance of those that 128 number those were all delivered via courier,” Silas said.

There are several options for voters who were impacted.

“The option right now is to vote in person or if that’s not possible, to download that federal write-in absentee ballot so they can again get that in the mail by 7 p.m. today and get that out,” Garabadu said.

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300 Cobb voters still missing absentee ballots after 1,000 not mailed out Election officials worked through the weekend to overnight ballots to most of the affected voters.

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