Oversized envelopes are causing a delay in absentee ballots being mailed out in one Georgia county.
Gwinnett County, a heavily populated area northeast of Atlanta, is using larger envelopes after a settlement in federal court earlier this year required larger font and clearer instructions, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The settlement was reached in response to a lawsuit over the county’s comparatively high rate of absentee ballot rejections last election cycle.
The lawsuit, filed by groups including the Democratic Party of Georgia, in part challenged ballot envelopes that contained small print to accommodate instructions in both English and Spanish. The county is the only one in Georgia required to print election materials in both languages under federal law because of its large Spanish-speaking population.
The larger envelopes used as a result of the settlement take longer to process by a New York-based vendor used by the county, the newspaper reports.
A news release from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says Gwinnett has only been able to mail about half of the 120,000 absentee ballots that have been requested there so far.
