COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The Cobb County Board of Elections is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia after more than 1,046 absentee ballots were never sent in the mail, the ACLU announced Sunday.
The lawsuit was filed in an effort to seek "emergency relief" so that hundreds of Cobb County voters will be able to cast their ballot with Election Day looming on Tuesday.
The ACLU is pushing for ballots to be sent overnight to all the voters who still need their absentee ballots and push back the deadline for these voters from 7 p.m. on Election Day to Nov. 14, which is the same deadline for those in the military and living out of the country.
Board of Election officials must sent out absentee ballots within three days of processing an application under Georgia law, but the ACLU states that Cobb County officials failed to do so. Data currently shows that 250 of those affected by the issue have voted in person.
“There is a direct correlation between the state’s sweeping anti-voter law, S.B. 202, and Cobb County’s failure to get over a thousand registered voters their absentee ballots,” Rahul Garabadu, the ACLU of Georgia’s senior voting rights attorney said. “The anti-voter law put tremendous pressure on elections officials to accomplish a number of responsibilities under a very tight deadline, and in Cobb County, that pressure has resulted in a huge error and hundreds of voters at risk of being disenfranchised."
Absentee voters who did not receive their ballots by mail can vote in person at their assigned precinct on Election Day.