ATLANTA -- Georgia's chief election official is urging residents to complete and send in their absentee ballots now instead of waiting.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday urged the nearly 1 million voters who haven't returned ballots to do so.
"We want to get it off of people's kitchen tables and back to your county election office," the Republican said. The June 9 primary is two weeks from today.
The state has twice postponed primaries because of the coronavirus pandemic. Georgia's March 24 presidential primaries were first moved to May 19, when voters were set to choose party nominees for other 2020 races including a U.S. Senate contest. As infections and deaths mounted, election day was bumped back again to June 9.
In March, Raffensperger took the unprecedented step of sending absentee ballot applications to all 6.9 million active registered voters statewide.
So far, nearly 510,000 people had returned their ballots as of early Friday, while another 61,000 had voted in person during early voting. Voters can still request mail-in ballots through June 5, but are unlikely to have enough time to receive them by mail and return them by mail if they wait that long. Ballots must be returned to county election offices by 7 p.m. on June 9.
Raffensperger warned Monday that voters could face long waits if they attempt to vote in person either early or on election day because of precautions to prevent the spread of the covid-19 respiratory disease and a shortage of poll workers.
Election officials in Fulton County, Georgia's most populous, agreed last week to open polls earlier and expand voting sites after lines formed on the first day of early voting.
Fulton County is still running behind on getting absentee ballots mailed. That's in part because the county is struggling to process more than 27,000 emailed requests.
Two smaller counties, Appling and McDuffie, saw their in-person voting sites shut last week because of coronavirus infections.
Governor sued
over mail-in vote
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES -- Three Republican groups have sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over his executive order to send mail-in ballots to California's 20.6 million voters in November.
The suit was brought by the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the California Republican Party.
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Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced the lawsuit on Sunday through Twitter.
"His radical plan is a recipe for disaster that would create more opportunities for fraud & destroy the confidence Californians deserve to have in their elections," McDaniel said.
Newsom issued the order on May 8, making California the first state in the nation to temporarily shift to all-mail voting as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit accuses Newsom of a "brazen power grab" that would "violate eligible citizens' right to vote."
The complaint echoes those made by President Donald Trump, who has criticized mail-in ballots as "dangerous" and fraudulent and threatened to withhold federal funding from some states that have sought to expand mail voting.
In making the decision, California officials cited public health concerns of millions of people showing up to cast a ballot when the threat of infection is still likely to be present.
Responding to the lawsuit late Sunday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said via Twitter: "Expanding vote-by-mail during a pandemic is not a partisan issue -- it's a moral imperative to protect voting rights and public safety. Vote-by-mail has been used safely and effectively in red, blue and purple states for years. This lawsuit is just another part of Trump's political smear campaign against voting by mail. We will not let this virus be exploited for voter suppression."
A Section on 05/26/2020