A woman holds up her sticker that signifies that she has officially voted in the state of Georgia, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — Georgia's third-largest county is running late in mailing more than 3,000 absentee ballots to voters just a few days before the election.

To deliver the ballots on time, election officials in Cobb County north of Atlanta were using U.S. Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery, and sending the ballots with prepaid express return envelopes.

“We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation,” county Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas said in a statement Thursday. “We are taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them."

Silas blamed the delay on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballot requests during the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.

However, a judge ruled Friday that Cobb County voters receiving their absentee ballots late can return them by Nov. 8, three days after Election Day, as long as they're postmarked by Tuesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The ruling came after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit seeking to extend the deadline.

Georgia voters have shattered early turnout records since advance voting began Oct. 15. As of Friday afternoon, more than 3.8 million ballots, reflecting more than half the state's active voters, had been cast, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office. The tally includes more than 238,000 absentees.

In Cobb County, election officials said voters whose awaiting absentee ballots were late could still vote in-person on the final day of early voting Friday or on Tuesday. The county's election headquarters planned to stay open to accept hand-delivered absentees through the weekend and on Monday.

However, the Board of Elections said that more than 1,000 of the absentee ballots being mailed late were being sent to people outside of Georgia.

A county spokesperson, Ross Cavitt, declined to comment Friday on what number, if any, of the late ballots still needed to be mailed, citing pending litigation.

The civil rights groups' lawsuit was filed on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they still had not received absentee ballots by mail as of Friday. The lawsuit said that although county election officials “have taken some steps to help alleviate the problem, those actions are not nearly enough to safeguard their right to vote.”

News from © The Associated Press, 2024