Georgia County contacting voters who never received absentee ballots, after lawsuit

Election officials in Gwinnett County, Georgia, will ensure voters who never received an absentee ballot — despite requesting one — will still get a ballot to cast in tomorrow’s midterm election. 

The announcement follows a voter’s lawsuit against the county over not receiving the absentee ballot he requested. Pro-voting groups representing the plaintiff reached an agreement with the county Saturday for election officials to individually contact voters who have not yet returned their absentee ballot and tell them they can request a replacement. The replacement ballots will be sent overnight, and the county will cover the cost of return postage.

According to the complaint filed by pro-voting groups on behalf of the voter, as many as 1,820 Gwinnett County voters who requested an absentee ballot never received one.

“No voter should lose their voice because an absentee ballot they requested never made it to their mailbox,” Will Hughes, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement last week. “With Election Day just days away, Gwinnett County voters deserve immediate action to ensure they have a meaningful opportunity to cast their ballots and have them counted.”

Gwinnett isn’t the only county in the Peach State that had issues sending out absentee ballots. Voters in Cobb County reported comparable issues, prompting a similar lawsuit and resolution.

A spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center — one of the pro-voting groups that represented the Gwinnett County plaintiff — said in an email that voters in DeKalb County experienced similar issues with absentee ballots not reaching voters. County election officials also agreed to contact individual voters who never returned their ballot to ask if they’d like a replacement sent to them. 

“Folks should be able to count on their government to do the bare minimum the law requires: Mail absentee ballots on time,” Raneem Ashrawi, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement. “The right to vote is our most fundamental constitutional right and the bedrock of all other rights. Gwinnett voters eligible to vote absentee should not pay the steep price of losing their voice because of failures by their local board of elections.”