Cobb County voters affected by unsent absentee ballots receive extended deadline

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - A judge agreed to extend the absentee ballot counting deadline for a number of voters in Cobb County who never received a ballot due to "human error".

Over the weekend, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU of Georgia), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Dechert LLP banded together to file a lawsuit to extend the voting period for Cobb County absentee voters. The plaintiffs claimed Cobb County officials violated state law when what was estimated to be over 1000 absentee ballots were never mailed out to residents.

Late Monday afternoon, Cobb County officials held a press conference to address the lawsuit and a court order Cobb County Superior Court Judge Kellie Hill signed.

Through an investigation over the weekend, that estimated ‘1000’ unsent ballots was whittled down to only 276 voters still needing a ballot.

Daniel White, an attorney for the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, said they came to that number of 276 after finding that most of the affected voters canceled their original absentee ballots and requested new ones, or went to a poll site to vote early in-person instead.

White specified multiple times throughout the conference that while the order extends the counting deadline to Nov. 14, this is not an opportunity for citizens to vote after Election Day. After the 276 ballots are sent out overnight, those voters only have until the end of Election Day just like everyone else to ship them back. Only ballots postmarked by Nov. 8 will be counted once received--something White says all parties agreed upon.

Many have been wondering how a mistake like this was made in the first place.

In initial reports, Elections and Registrations Director Janine Eveler called it "human error". In Monday's presser, she revealed one employee had the responsibility of entering one flash drive full of addresses into a "mailing machine" and failed to do so, resulting in the unsent ballots.

Election workers said there will likely be a state elections' investigation to better understand how to prevent this from happening again, but they'll wait until after the election to figure out what to do with the employee at fault. 

"At this point, we're really not looking at that," Eveler said. "We know how it happened, but we still need all of our staff in place. There will be some work on what happens next after we get through the election."

If those impacted voters still don't receive a ballot by Nov. 8, they can submit a federal write-in absentee ballot.