Elbert County has accepted 2,041 absentee ballots during the Nov. 3 presidential election and rejected one of them – a rejection rate of 0.04 percent.
That compares with a statewide rejection rate of 0.24 percent, according to an analysis of Georgia Secretary of State mailed absentee ballot records by the Peachtree Times. In contrast, the rejection rate was 3 percent in 2016, when 202,492 Georgians voted absentee and 6,059 ballots were rejected.
During the Nov. 3 presidential election, Georgia recorded 1,307,472 absentee ballots and rejected just 3,152 of them. That was one-twelfth of the rejection rate during the 2016 presidential election.
If state elections officials had rejected ballots at a similar rate this year as they did in 2016, more than 39,000 ballots would not have counted – or nearly four times the existing margin between Republican President Trump and Democrat challenger Joe Biden.
Per state laws, absentee ballots are rejected for myriad reasons, including arriving late, having no signatures or signatures that don’t match. Other disqualifying transgressions: writing the name of the candidate for whom you are voting on the envelope or leaving an envelope open.
Voters casting absentee ballots – especially for the first time – are expected to make mistakes.
But not this year in Georgia.
Georgia’s reported 2020 absentee rejection rate is among the lowest ever publicly recorded in U.S. election history.
University of Florida Political Science Professor Michael McDonald studied 25 2020 primary elections and said some 2 percent of absentee ballots – or eight times Georgia’s general election rate – were rejected.
One percent of absentee ballots were rejected in Georgia’s 2020 primary election, or four times as many as it rejected in the general election. Florida rejected 1.5 percent of absentee ballots in its 2020 primary, one-third for failing to meet signature match requirements.
New York election officials reported in July that 25 percent of absentee ballots were being rejected. Many didn’t have proper signatures or postmarks.
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Georgia Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate by County
| County | Absentee Ballots Accepted in Nov. 3 Election | Absentee Ballots Rejected in Nov. 3 Election | Nov. 3 Rejection Rate |
| Appling | 1,529 | 3 | 0.14% |
| Atkinson | 296 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Bacon | 680 | 2 | 0.21% |
| Baker | 374 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Baldwin | 4,305 | 16 | 0.23% |
| Banks | 1,376 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Barrow | 7,842 | 13 | 0.12% |
| Bartow | 10,570 | 48 | 0.35% |
| Ben Hill | 1,244 | 2 | 0.11% |
| Berrien | 1,125 | 3 | 0.17% |
| Bibb | 19,809 | 5 | 0.02% |
| Bleckley | 1,047 | 2 | 0.14% |
| Brantley | 892 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Brooks | 1,630 | 4 | 0.19% |
| Bryan | 3,600 | 24 | 0.45% |
| Bulloch | 6,425 | 14 | 0.16% |
| Burke | 2,513 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Butts | 2,130 | 2 | 0.07% |
| Calhoun | 591 | 2 | 0.27% |
| Camden | 4,938 | 14 | 0.21% |
| Candler | 738 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Carroll | 9,421 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Catoosa | 5,157 | 9 | 0.13% |
| Charlton | 692 | 6 | 0.63% |
| Chatham | 41,138 | 57 | 0.10% |
| Chattahoochee | 275 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Chattooga | 1,785 | 4 | 0.18% |
| Cherokee | 37,477 | 1 | 0.00% |
| Clarke | 18,452 | 44 | 0.19% |
| Clay | 405 | 11 | 2.02% |
| Clayton | 31,429 | 16 | 0.04% |
| Clinch | 359 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Cobb | 148,497 | 352 | 0.19% |
| Coffee | 1,924 | 9 | 0.29% |
| Colquitt | 2,592 | 5 | 0.13% |
| Columbia | 16,556 | 14 | 0.06% |
| Cook | 1,010 | 2 | 0.14% |
| Coweta | 18,963 | 46 | 0.20% |
| Crawford | 1,090 | 5 | 0.32% |
| Crisp | 1,676 | 4 | 0.17% |
| Dade | 1,022 | 2 | 0.13% |
| Dawson | 3,053 | 1 | 0.02% |
| Decatur | 2,317 | 22 | 0.66% |
| Dekalb | 126,942 | 411 | 0.24% |
| Dodge | 1,303 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dooly | 738 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dougherty | 10,335 | 80 | 0.51% |
| Douglas | 19,610 | 19 | 0.07% |
| Early | 1,106 | 2 | 0.14% |
| Echols | 157 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Effingham | 4,920 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Elbert | 2,041 | 1 | 0.04% |
| Emanuel | 1,723 | 1 | 0.04% |
| Evans | 843 | 3 | 0.28% |
| Fannin | 3,426 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Fayette | 18,552 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Floyd | 8,660 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Forsyth | 30,644 | 120 | 0.29% |
| Franklin | 2,032 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Fulton | 142,245 | 451 | 0.21% |
| Gilmer | 3,479 | 7 | 0.16% |
| Glascock | 261 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Glynn | 10,192 | 30 | 0.22% |
| Gordon | 4,055 | 8 | 0.15% |
| Grady | 2,236 | 9 | 0.27% |
| Greene | 2,817 | 15 | 0.36% |
| Gwinnett | 123,483 | 346 | 0.20% |
| Habersham | 4,246 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Hall | 21,556 | 11 | 0.04% |
| Hancock | 1,471 | 3 | 0.16% |
| Haralson | 2,483 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Harris | 4,205 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Hart | 2,586 | 2 | 0.05% |
| Heard | 981 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Henry | 29,148 | 176 | 0.43% |
| Houston | 20,121 | 22 | 0.08% |
| Irwin | 614 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Jackson | 7,290 | 10 | 0.11% |
| Jasper | 1,478 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Jeff Davis | 816 | 1 | 0.08% |
| Jefferson | 1,691 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Jenkins | 761 | 1 | 0.09% |
| Johnson | 757 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Jones | 2,999 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Lamar | 1,756 | 1 | 0.04% |
| Lanier | 547 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Laurens | 5,095 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Lee | 2,467 | 24 | 0.70% |
| Liberty | 5,492 | 47 | 0.61% |
| Lincoln | 1,082 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Long | 756 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Lowndes | 9,216 | 14 | 0.10% |
| Lumpkin | 3,298 | 12 | 0.28% |
| Macon | 845 | 2 | 0.14% |
| Madison | 2,937 | 5 | 0.13% |
| Marion | 775 | 1 | 0.10% |
| McDuffie | 2,429 | 3 | 0.09% |
| McIntosh | 1,686 | 8 | 0.34% |
| Meriwether | 2,484 | 7 | 0.21% |
| Miller | 487 | 2 | 0.31% |
| Mitchell | 2,195 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Monroe | 2,442 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Montgomery | 669 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Morgan | 1,998 | 14 | 0.50% |
| Murray | 2,058 | 1 | 0.04% |
| Muscogee | 24,394 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Newton | 15,495 | 49 | 0.25% |
| Oconee | 5,767 | 16 | 0.22% |
| Oglethorpe | 1,840 | 2 | 0.08% |
| Paulding | 20,322 | 44 | 0.17% |
| Peach | 2,565 | 24 | 0.63% |
| Pickens | 2,894 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Pierce | 1,293 | 6 | 0.32% |
| Pike | 1,449 | 8 | 0.37% |
| Polk | 2,812 | 7 | 0.18% |
| Pulaski | 681 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Putnam | 3,276 | 1 | 0.02% |
| Quitman | 231 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Rabun | 2,585 | 1 | 0.03% |
| Randolph | 677 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Richmond | 27,767 | 119 | 0.31% |
| Rockdale | 12,530 | 26 | 0.15% |
| Schley | 317 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Screven | 1,300 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Seminole | 548 | 1 | 0.11% |
| Spalding | 7,833 | 66 | 0.59% |
| Stephens | 2,183 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Stewart | 482 | 2 | 0.31% |
| Sumter | 2,860 | 7 | 0.17% |
| Talbot | 1,189 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Taliaferro | 302 | 2 | 0.53% |
| Tattnall | 1,364 | 5 | 0.26% |
| Taylor | 778 | 15 | 1.32% |
| Telfair | 980 | 6 | 0.46% |
| Terrell | 1,124 | 2 | 0.13% |
| Thomas | 4,106 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Tift | 2,701 | 5 | 0.12% |
| Toombs | 2,313 | 10 | 0.32% |
| Towns | 1,929 | 5 | 0.19% |
| Treutlen | 579 | 5 | 0.62% |
| Troup | 6,408 | 1 | 0.01% |
| Turner | 524 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Twiggs | 1,056 | 7 | 0.49% |
| Union | 3,564 | 5 | 0.11% |
| Upson | 2,772 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Walker | 5,813 | 4 | 0.05% |
| Walton | 10,394 | 26 | 0.18% |
| Ware | 2,948 | 11 | 0.25% |
| Warren | 736 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Washington | 2,487 | 16 | 0.47% |
| Wayne | 2,109 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Webster | 351 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Wheeler | 387 | 1 | 0.18% |
| White | 3,087 | 5 | 0.12% |
| Whitfield | 6,486 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Wilcox | 556 | 4 | 0.52% |
| Wilkes | 1,222 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Wilkinson | 859 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Worth | 1,586 | 4 | 0.18% |
| TOTALS | 1,307,472 | 3,152 | 0.24% |
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