www.GoodMorningGwinnett.com Tens of thousands of absentee ballots requested in Gwinnett County haven’t yet been mailed to voters because of delays caused by an unusually large ballot envelope.
Gwinnett increased the size of its ballot envelope as the result of a court settlement in March that required larger type sizes and clearer instructions in response to a lawsuit over high numbers of ballot rejections.
The big ballot envelope, which measures 6.5 inches by 11 inches, takes more time to process by an Albany, New York-based company that Gwinnett hired.
“This is why Elections Administration 101 is to not change the rules in the middle of the game,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday. “Georgia’s elections staff and poll workers have a large enough task ahead of them executing an election during a pandemic without shortsighted and uninformed activist lawsuits burdening them with impractical bureaucratic hurdles.”
Bianca Keaton, chairwoman of Gwinnett’s Democratic Party, countered Raffensperger’s claim, saying his office had negotiated and agreed to the settlement months ago. She called his statement “disingenuous,” saying it was “some of the ugliest political posturing.”
