More than 1,000 absentee voters in Cobb County did not get the ballots they requested in time to vote.

After a lawsuit by the ACLU, there is now an agreement to help protect voting rights.

Both parties reached a consent order that will help the voters who were impacted.

The amount of voters who did not receive their ballots is now down to 276 voters who have not received a ballot.

“The judge considered our positions this morning both sides came together and said we want to work out a consent order,” Daniel White, the attorney for the Cobb County Board of Elections, said.

Representatives with the ACLU say they just want to make sure that everyone who was affected knows their rights.

“Our main concern is getting the word out to anyone who might be affected to make sure they know what their rights are, and that the receipt deadline for the absentee ballot will be Monday, November 14th,” Vasu Abhiraman told Newell.

The agreement was reached during an emergency court hearing just a day after the lawsuit.

“Just so you know, the county was already preparing to address this with its own legal action. We were going to ask the court for relief, so this is something we were working on our own,” White explained.

Election officials say the issues began with two incidents in October where a staff member did not upload voter information from a flash drive onto a computer to make sure they were mailed.

Cobb County election officials say they worked throughout the weekend to overnight absentee ballots to many of the people who were impacted.

“Some of those folks have already voted in person by now. Others have received absentee ballots over the weekend, and so the number of folks who are actually affected by this issue is a lot smaller,” Abhiraman said.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Kellie Hill signed off on the consent order this afternoon.

All those affected will have to have their ballot postmarked by Tuesday in order to count, but the elections office does not have to receive it until November 14th.

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