Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Never mind: Georgians can still email their absentee ballot applications

email alert on laptop
Nipitphon Na Chiangmai/Getty Images

Email is once again an acceptable way for voters in Atlanta to request an absentee ballot.

It wasn't for two days. On Monday and through most of Tuesday, election officials in Fulton County, which takes in much of the city, rejected emailed applications to vote by mail in next month's primary runoffs — telling people they needed to apply by letter, fax or in person. The county reversed itself by the end of the day, after the state warned it was flatly violating Georgia law.

The flare-up, although limited and short lived, was still a fresh reminder of the long and multifaceted history of voter suppression in the Deep South's biggest state — which is under especially vigilant watch this year, when it's become both a presidential and two-seat Senate battleground.


Before the state's chaotic primary last month, Fulton election officials struggled to keep up with the flood of emailed requests from state's most populous county. Many residents didn't receive their absentee ballot in time, forcing them to wait for several hours in line at polling places across Atlanta and risk Covid-19 exposure to vote in person.

While lifting the short moratorium on emailed requests, the county is telling voters to help make the application process smoother: Send only one ballot request in each email, make sure it's legible and send either a PDF or JPG file smaller than 5 megabytes.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

To offer voters another option, the state says it will create a website for absentee ballot requests for the November election.

It's unclear how many such requests from Fulton voters were overlooked or not processed in time for the primary. Despite these problems, more than 93,000 voters cast ballots by mail — the third most in the state behind two other Metro Atlanta counties, Cobb and DeKalb.

The voting rights group Fair Fight Action called on Republcian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to make clear that all counties have to process emailed requests. He "must step up and immediately do his job to ensure that Georgians do not have different access to democracy depending on their ZIP code," said CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo.

There's no evidence that any other county has done what Fulton did, Raffensperger's office said.

Overall, 49 percent of the 2.4 million votes cast in the primary were by mail — eight times the share in most recent elections, after Raffensperger infuriated many of his fellow GOP officeholders by sending applications to every registered voter in the state.

Read More

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

An illustration of hands putting together a puzzle.

Getty Images, cienpies

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

The concept of the common good in American society has undergone a remarkable transformation since the nation's founding. What began as a clear, if contested, vision of collective welfare has splintered into something far more complex and individualistic. This shift reflects changing times and a fundamental reimagining of what we owe each other as citizens and human beings.

The nation’s progenitors wrestled with this very question. They drew heavily from Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw the social contract as a sacred covenant between citizens and their government. But they also pulled from deeper wells—the Puritan concept of the covenant community, the classical Republican tradition of civic virtue, and the Christian ideal of serving one's neighbor. These threads wove into something uniquely American: a vision of the common good that balances individual liberty with collective responsibility.

Keep ReadingShow less
We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

Students in a classroom.

Getty Images, Maskot

We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

“If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men.” - W.E.B. Du Bois

The current state of public education has many confused, anxious, and even fearful. Depending on the day, I feel any combination of the above, among other less-than-ideal adjectives. Simply, the future is uncertain. Schools are simultaneously cutting budgets and trying to remain relevant, all during an increasingly tense political climate.

Keep ReadingShow less
Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

An oversized gavel surrounded by people.

Getty Images, J Studios

Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

In a recent post we quoted a journalist describing the Republican Party as anti-immigration. Many of our readers wrote back angrily to say that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally.

But that's not true. And we're not shy of telling it like it is.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Importance of Respecting Court Orders
brown wooden chess piece on brown book

The Importance of Respecting Court Orders

The most important question in American politics today is whether Donald Trump will respect court orders. Judges have repeatedly ruled against his administration.

But will he listen?

Keep ReadingShow less