Georgia judge makes last-minute change to mail-in ballot rules before election
A Georgia county got extra time to count mail-in votes after failing to send 3000 ballots on schedule. Judgeʼs decision came just before last years election where every vote mattered in this key state
Last fall a Georgia court stepped-in when Judge Robert Flournoy had to fix Cobb Countys ballot problem: they didnt send 3000 mail-in ballots fast enough
The county got swamped with requests (about 750 each day) and their equipment couldnt keep up; on the final day before cut-off they got 985 requests. Tori Silas who leads the election board said: “we werent ready for so many people wanting ballots“
The situation required immediate action to protect constitutional voting rights
The judge made these rules:
* Ballots must be stamped by 11/5
* County can count them until 11/8
* Only applies to ones mailed after 10/30
The state saw big turn-out that year - more than half of Georgias active voters (3.8 million people) voted early with 230‚000 using mail-in ballots. Cobb County which sits in Atlantas north suburbs is super-diverse and couldʼve been key in the tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump
The county worked with mail companies to speed-up delivery and the election board set-up new ways to track ballots — but some voters still had to wait longer than usual
