Cobb County was set to mail out more than 3,000 outstanding absentee ballots Thursday, but it could be too late for them to be counted in time for this year’s election.
A surge of last-minute absentee ballots requested last Friday will be shipped via U.S. Postal Service Express Mail or UPS Overnight to be delivered by Friday — the last day of early voting. Over 1,000 of those last-minute absentee ballots will be shipped out of state, according to election officials.
Cobb Elections Director Tate Fall said in a statement that the county used a vendor to send out ballots through Oct. 25, but it was up to the county to process requests that came in after that. That’s when the county discovered its “equipment was not working,” she said.
“By the time we got the equipment online, the deadline for mailing the ballots had passed, prompting us to work with the U.S. Postal Service and UPS to take extraordinary measures,” Fall said. “Our team has been working around the clock to get the ballots out.”
The Postal Service is working to ensure ballots will be delivered on time for this year’s election, but it encouraged any mail-in voters to return their ballots by this past Tuesday, one week before Election Day. There is no guarantee that they will make it in time to be counted. Ballots must be received by county election offices before polls close at 7 p.m. this coming Tuesday, Election Day.
Voting rights advocates are encouraging Georgia voters to make a plan to vote in person or hand-deliver their absentee ballots to a drop box or to a county election office.
In an effort to help remedy the issue, these ballots will come with prepaid express return envelopes, and the county is extending the period in which absentee voters can return their ballots to the Cobb Elections Headquarters through 8 p.m. Monday.
“We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation,” Cobb Board of Elections Chair Tori Silas said. “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.”
Early voting has surged this year, while the number of absentee voters has plummeted compared with the 2020 presidential election. So far, 343,000 Georgia voters have requested absentee ballots, and about 225,000 have been returned.
The last day of early voting is Friday. Election officials are encouraging voters to bring their absentee ballots with them if they choose to vote in person.
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