Late Gwinnett Ballots Blamed On 'Activist Lawsuit': Raffensperger

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — Only about half of the 120,000 absentee ballots requested by Gwinnett County voters have been mailed so far, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The reason: They’re too big to fit in the usual envelope, and they require special processing.

In a statement posted Friday to the secretary of state’s website, Raffensperger, a Republican, blamed it on “short-sighted activist lawsuits.”

The change in envelope size — which accommodates larger type — was part of how a federal lawsuit brought by Democrats stemming from the 2018 general election was resolved seven months ago.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, more than 8,100 absentee ballots in Georgia — about 3 percent of the total — were rejected in 2018 because of what election officials judged to be mismatched signatures or incorrect information on ballot envelopes.

More than 20 percent of those rejected ballots were thrown out in Gwinnett County, where only 419 votes separated the winner for a U.S. Congressional seat, Republican Rob Woodall, from Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux.

Bourdeaux will be running again, this time against Republican Rich McCormack, in the Nov. 3 general election.

The new envelopes are 6.5 by 11 inches — nearly the size of a standard piece of paper — and require special handling by a company in Albany, New York, according to Raffensperger.

“This is why elections administration 101 is to not change the rules in the middle of the game,” Raffensperger said in the statement. “Georgia’s elections staff and poll workers have a large enough task ahead of them executing an election during a pandemic without shortsighted and uniformed activist lawsuits burdening them with impractical bureaucratic hurdles. These activists opened Pandora’s Box with their frivolous lawsuits, demanding what they characterize as small changes that in reality have damaging and far-reaching consequences.”

The chairperson of Gwinnett County’s Democratic Party, Bianca Keaton, pushed back, saying that Raffensperger’s office had agreed to this settlement seven months ago. Keaton characterized Raffensperger’s statement as “disingenuous,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and called it “some of the ugliest political posturing.”

A spokesperson for Gwinnett County told the Atlanta newspaper Friday afternoon that the elections supervisor was not immediately available for comment.