Why Georgia has extended its deadline for some absentee ballots

A Georgia state judge has ruled in favor of extending the deadline for absentee ballots in Cobb County after election officials failed to send out over 1,036 ballots. Voters who requested the absentee ballots, but never received them, will have until Nov.14 to cast their ballots, CNN reports.

Janine Eveler, the Cobb County elections director, told reporters, "The ballots appeared to be issued because they were marked in the system as issued, but the final step of actually running it through the machine did not." She said the missing ballots were "completely human error."

In response to the administrative mistake, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and the Southern Poverty Law Center announced that they had filed a lawsuit in an attempt to secure more time for voters to receive replacement ballots to cast their votes.

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Cobb election officials determined that of the 1,036 voters who did not receive their absentee ballot, 716 have not voted yet. Officials calculated that 276 voters still need to be sent a replacement ballot with an overnight return envelope, per CNN. Others opted to vote during the early voting period.

The new deadline will match the deadline for the state's military and overseas ballots. Those voting by absentee ballots must normally cast and postmark the vote by Election Day. Cobb County election attorney Daniel White says those who haven't received their replacement ballots can print out the federal write-in ballots typically reserved for overseas voters.