A court in Cobb County, Georgia, issued an order Monday to accommodate voters who requested absentee ballots that were never sent. An administrative error at the Cobb County Board of Elections (BOE)  left 1,036 voters without their requested absentee ballots as election day quickly approached.

The consent order, issued the day before election day, required the Cobb County BOE to overnight the absentee ballots to the affected voters. Some voters whose ballots were forgotten ended up casting their ballots at early voting stations or sought a reissued absentee ballot on their own, but almost 500 voters had not yet been mailed replacement ballots when the order was issued.

Voters receiving absentee ballots that were overnighted on November 7 must still mail their ballots by 7 PM on November 8. However, the order instructs the BOE to count mail-in ballots received by November 14, so long as they are postmarked by November 8. This November 14 deadline is the same for active military members and citizens voting absentee from overseas.

The order also required the Cobb County BOE to reach out to affected voters by email and text message informing them about the status of their ballots. The voters will be allowed to vote by mail or by Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB). FWABs are typically used by military and overseas absentee voters whose ballots have not arrived on schedule–they are printable ballots, rather than the pre-printed absentee ballots typically mailed to requesting voters.

The Georgia ACLU represented voters who had not yet received their absentee ballots in this matter. ACLU staff attorney Jonathan Topaz said, “This is an important result for these Cobb County voters, who through no fault of their own did not receive the absentee ballots to which they were legally entitled. We will fight to ensure that this agreement is fully enforced and that these voters have the opportunity to exercise their fundamental right to vote in the November election.”