FACT CHECK: Did Georgia’s DeKalb County Reject 40,000 Mail-In Ballots?
A viral Instagram post claims Georgia’s DeKalb County rejected 40,000 mail-in ballots that need to be “cured” by Friday.
Verdict: False
The DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections said Nov. 4 that only about 200 ballots need to be cured by the Nov. 6 deadline. Approximately 3,000 ballots are expected to be rejected across the state, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has told reporters.
Fact Check:
Featured in the Instagram post is a screen grab of a now-deleted tweet from former Democratic State Senate candidate Gil Freeman that alleges “40,000 rejected vote by mail ballots in DeKalb County need to be cured by Friday or they will be tossed.”
Ballot curing is the process that allows voters to resolve issues, often related to signatures, with their ballots so that they can be counted, according to ABC affiliate WJBF. The deadline to do so in Georgia is Nov. 6, three days after Election Day, per the National Conference of State Legislatures. (RELATED: Viral Video Falsely Claims Ballots Marked With Sharpie Were Invalidated In Arizona)
The number of DeKalb County ballots that need to be cured is greatly exaggerated in the Instagram post. As of Nov. 4, the county had about 200 preliminarily rejected ballots that need to be cured, according to a tweet from the DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections.
Voters: there is incorrect info circulating regarding the number of DeKalb ballots that need to be cured by Friday. Currently, there are approximately 200 ballots that need to be cured and each voter is being contacted via phone or overnight mail.
— DeKalb County Votes (@DeKalbVotes) November 4, 2020
“Voters: there is incorrect info circulating regarding the number of DeKalb ballots that need to be cured by Friday,” the DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections tweeted. “Currently, there are approximately 200 ballots that need to be cured and each voter is being contacted via phone or overnight mail.”
Jessica Huseman, a ProPublica reporter, tweeted on Nov. 4 that the Georgia Secretary of State said they expect around 3,000 rejections statewide.
This is *false*. This county had 170,856 mail ballots requested — 40K rejected would be insanely high for Georgia, which rejected only 1 percent of ballots during the primary.
The secretary of state’s office tells me they expect around 3,000 rejections across the whole state. https://t.co/x37iytIDzA
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) November 4, 2020
“This is *false*. This county had 170,856 mail ballots requested — 40K rejected would be insanely high for Georgia, which rejected only 1 percent of ballots during the primary,” Huseman tweeted. “The secretary of state’s office tells me they expect around 3,000 rejections across the whole state.”
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