Georgia officials are scrambling to fix a mess right before Election Day. Thousands of voters in Gwinnett and Cobb counties never got their absentee ballots. The Washington Examiner reports that nearly 5,000 residents in these two key counties did not receive the mail-in ballots they requested. This isn’t just a small glitch. It is a breakdown in the system that affects who gets to vote.
In Cobb County, a lawsuit filed by the Elias Law Group claimed roughly 2,900 voters were left in the dark. The county admitted they faced issues but blamed a third-party vendor. They released a statement acknowledging that “a limited number of voters who requested an absentee-by-mail ballot may have experienced a delay in receiving their ballot.” That sounds polite, but it leaves people wondering if their vote will count.
The Vendor Blame Game
Gwinnett County is facing similar trouble. A coalition of groups including the ACLU and SPLC sued over the weekend. They say 1,820 residents there never got their mail ballots. These two counties are critical. They voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in 2024. Now, they will decide the governor and Senate races. The Washington Examiner notes that Trump won Georgia overall, but losing these specific counties could change the outcome.
The county in Cobb promised to send new ballots by priority express mail. They will also give voters a prepaid return envelope. This is a fix for the past, but it does not fix the trust. Why did the vendor fail? Why did this happen so close to the deadline? The county pinned the blame on the vendor, but the voters are the ones who suffer.
California’s Bigger Battle
The problem is not just in Georgia. The Trump administration is fighting a huge battle in California. They asked the Supreme Court to set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots. The New York Post reports these ballots allegedly went to noncitizens. The administration argues that once these ballots are mixed with legal ones, they cannot be separated. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, “Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back.”
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said the number is at least 20,000. He called it the floor. He warned that “Every minute that goes by, American citizen votes are being diluted in the state of California.” The Supreme Court has since denied the request to stop the counting. This leaves the question of election integrity hanging in the air. We know the Constitution leaves elections to the states, but does that mean anyone can vote?
What We Must Watch
The Supreme Court denial means the 20,000 ballots in California might be counted. Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, warned that “once those ballots are processed, it would be impossible to identify them.” Now that the Court has moved on, the focus shifts to the results. If the numbers shift, we need to know why. The RedState reported that the DOJ is still prosecuting noncitizens who voted illegally. Six more foreign nationals were arrested in a separate operation.
