Ayota v. Fall

On the afternoon of October 31, 2024, Cobb County issued a press release acknowledging that it had failed to send more than 3,000 absentee ballots to Cobb County voters who had timely requested them. Although these ballots were marked as “issued” in the My Voter Page system that voters can access to track their ballots, the ballots were not, in fact, sent to them. Georgia law requires ballots to be sent within three days of submitting an application.

The next morning, on November 1, 2024, the ACLU, ACLU of Georgia, and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a complaint and emergency motion for an interlocutory injunction and temporary restraining order on behalf of affected voters to safeguard their fundamental right to vote. We requested expedited mail service for all of the unsent ballots and a three-day extension of the deadline for affected voters to return their completed ballots.

We brought the lawsuit on behalf of Naomi Ayota, a first-time voter and college student who temporarily resides in Pennsylvania and cannot make it home to vote in person on Election Day; Grant Simmel, another college student temporarily residing in Colorado; Gabriel Dickson, a legally blind mail voter for whom voting in person would present a severe burden; and all other Cobb County voters who timely requested absentee ballots, had their absentee ballot applications accepted, but did not timely receive them due to the County’s administrative error.

On November 1, the court entered an order ordering Cobb County to mail absentee ballots to the affected voters with a prepaid express return envelope on or before November 1, 2024. The court also ordered Cobb County to give notice of the error to all affected voters as soon as possible via email or phone.

Update: On November 4, 2024, the Georgia Supreme Court granted Intervenor-Defendants’ Republican National Committee and Georgia GOP’s emergency motion for a stay of the Superior Court’s order. This means that as of now, ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive after Election Day will not be counted. However, the Georgia Supreme Court ordered that those ballots be segregated and not destroyed pending resolution of the case.