Chatham County voters face absentee ballots delays days ahead of election day.
Shelley Powers is one of many Chatham County voters who received their absentee ballot just days before the election day due date. Out of town, Chatham County resident Greg Olson also waited over a week for his ballot to arrive in the mail.
Olson said he must also vote by mail since he’s away from Georgia. Similarly, Powers relies on mail-in voting due to mobility constraints. Both said their ballots were mailed out on June 1 and arrived 12 days later, with 3 days left for ballots to be mailed again to arrive on time as a vote to count.
According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s website, Chatham County reports 1,425 absentee ballots have been requested, 1,423 issued, 395 returned and accepted as of midday Saturday.
Director of voter registration Sabrina German confirmed that her office at the Board of Registrars started mailing ballots out on June 1 through June 6. The unofficial count results show that over a thousand were mailed the first day.
Absentee voters have until election day at 7 p.m. to turn in their ballots. However, those who are waiting and still need to mail it in may not have enough time for their ballot to arrive.
Because mail coming out of Savannah gets processed in other cities, the U.S. Postal Service in Chatham County already faces inefficiencies from the transfer process.
“They’re passively saying, ‘We put them in the post office. It’s not a problem anymore.’ That can’t work,” Powers said.
The Jacksonville, Fla., distribution center, which serves the Savannah area, did not respond to two calls for inquiries about delays, and a representative at the main Savannah post office did not want to respond on record.
These mailing delays follow President Donald Trump’s executive order on March 31 detailing requirements for additional identity verification for absentee ballots in his crackdown on election integrity and mail-in voting. Changes include new directions and increased oversight in elections for the Postal Service, complicating the role of the agency in mail-in voting.
On June 2, the Postal Service published a proposal following the executive order that is up for review. If approved, among the new regulations, individuals will be required to share identification information to be on the state’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List. This list would then be shared with the Postal Service for verification before a ballot can be mailed out in an updated ballot envelope.
Georgia Secretary of State communications director Robert Sinners said these changes would not be in effect for this upcoming runoff election. Sinners added that the mailing delays are “a recurring issue with the Postal Service” but that the state has no control over the federal agency.
With just a few days until election day, the state’s election data shows that this gap in ballots issued versus accepted appears in other counties across Georgia.
Powers said like many who depend on this channel for voting, the delays may cause them to lose their right to vote.
“What happens if people aren’t getting their ballots this fall?” Powers said. “This is a contentious election this fall.”