MARIETTA, Ga. — About 3,400 voters in a key Georgia county received their mail-in ballots just days ago, or not at all — and on Monday, the state’s Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling that gave them extra time to get their ballots in.
That means thousands of voters have to turn in their mail-in ballots in person by 7 p.m. Tuesday, vote at a polling place on Election Day — or risk being disenfranchised.
Gregory, who asked that his last name not be used, received his mail-in ballot on Friday, even though he requested it in time. The Postal Service and election officials previously recommended mailing in ballots at least a week before Election Day.
Gregory delivered his mail-in ballot in person to the Cobb County elections office Tuesday. But he was worried about others who may be affected.
“Especially if they don’t have a car, it’s going to be hard,” he told HuffPost after dropping off the ballot. “It’s going to be a problem for them.”
Sheena Grantz, who also dropped off a ballot Tuesday, said her and her wife’s ballots had arrived on time, but her brother’s never arrived at all. Luckily, she said, “We found a TikTok [video] about it, so I sent it to him.”
“I just found out about that stuff last night,” Grantz told HuffPost of the legal fight over the ballots. “I sent him everything, told him he needs to follow up about it. I think he’s on the way [to vote in person] now.”
Another voter, who declined to give his name, said his ballot arrived in the mail Saturday.
According to the county, the issue was a surge of requests for mail-in ballots in the final days of the application window, as well as timing issues with a state-approved vendor and other problems with county printing equipment. More than 1,000 of the affected absentee ballots were being sent out of state, the county said.
After the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center filed an emergency suit over the late-delivered ballots last week, a judge ruled Friday that affected voters whose ballots were postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day would still be counted, as long as the ballots arrived at election offices by Friday.
But on Monday afternoon, the state’s Supreme Court reversed that ruling in a 5-3 decision, saying in response to an appeal by the state and national GOP that even affected voters would only have until the end of Election Day to turn in their ballots. Ballots postmarked on time but received by Friday, the court said, should be segregated but not counted, “until further order of the Court.”
Suddenly, county officials as well as local political parties, who received lists of affected voters, are scrambling to let them know that deadlines have changed for the worse.
Stacy Efrat, a Democratic Party appointee on the Cobb County Election Board, told HuffPost Tuesday that volunteers from various organizations had been calling voters all weekend telling them to get their ballots “postmarked by Tuesday, and that these ballots would be accepted by Friday.”
“We spent all weekend giving them that information, which was true at the time, and then last night, we learned that that decision was overturned, and they have to be received by Tuesday, not postmarked by Tuesday,” Efrat said. “So all of these people who had gotten that instruction — we’re trying to call them back. But we don’t know if it’s too late for some.”
County Board of Elections Chair Tori Silas told HuffPost that the county acknowledged its mistake and initially communicated the extended deadline to voters. After Monday’s Supreme Court order, she said, “we’ve taken every step we can to communicate with those voters that that extended deadline is no longer extended.”
For Essence Johnson, chair of the Cobb County Democratic Committee, “its just another one of those GOP tactics.” (Eight of nine justices on the Georgia Supreme Court were appointed by Republican governors, and Republican Party plaintiffs opposed the extended deadline for the ballots that were mailed out late.)
Johnson emphasized the out-of-state voters who were advised over the weekend to express-mail their ballots home to Georgia given the lower court’s ruling, trusting they would be counted as long as they were postmarked on time. But now, ballots that arrive late, even if they are postmarked on time, will be segregated and potentially discarded. “It’s all about voter suppression,” she said.
With hours to go, Johnson said Democratic Party volunteers and others are doing everything they can to spread the word about the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline to turn in ballots or vote in person.
“We’ve got door-knocking, callers, texters — the only thing we don’t have is a pigeon.”