Editor’s note: This article has been changed from its original version to clarify that the county registrar may send out absentee ballots no earlier than April 25.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — A new state elections law changes the way absentee ballots will be done, Colquitt County’s elections superintendent said Friday, but other voters won’t notice much change from the law.

Probate Judge Wes Lewis said voters in four of the county’s 19 precincts will cast ballots in different places on Election Day, but that’s a local decision not related to the new state law.

The Georgia Legislature passed Senate Bill 202 last year to change some rules after the 2020 election, in which the number of absentee ballots exploded as voters were encouraged to use them rather than going to the polls in order to discourage the spread of COVID-19.

Lewis said most changes under the law that voters will notice involve the procedures for absentee ballots and the schedule for early voting.

Anyone who is not registered to vote has until April 25 (one month before the election) to do so, Lewis said. The one-month deadline has been in Georgia law for years.

Absentee ballots

Lewis said a voter can request an absentee ballot application as early as 78 days before the election — which was back on March 7 — so the request can be made right away, but the registrar cannot mail out the ballot until April 25. 

Application requests cannot be submitted after May 13 — one week earlier than under the previous state law. Legislators changed that date to try to ensure the application can be mailed out, received by the voter, filled out and returned to the registrar and that the ballot itself can then be mailed, received, filled out and returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

To request an application, call County Registrar Paula McCullough at (229) 616-7056, or it’s available on the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page website at https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/. That site is also a useful place to confirm your registration and get other information about voting, Lewis said.

Once the voter has the application, he or she must fill it out, sign it and send it to the county registrar’s office. Most of the online form can be filled out electronically, but it must be printed out so that you can sign it with a pen. The new state law does not accept electronic signatures.

The application must include the voter’s driver’s license number or state identification number, or another form of identification must be attached. The Secretary of State’s website has a list of accepted documents.

Once the application is completed and signed, the printed-out document can be scanned and uploaded to the same website from which it was downloaded. A cell-phone photo of the document may be sufficient.

Any such application — whether printed from the website or received from the county registrar — can instead be mailed or taken in person to the registrar’s office, Colquitt County Courthouse Annex, 101 E. Central Ave., Moultrie, GA 31768.

Once the registrar receives the application, she will mail the voter the ballot (but no earlier than April 25). Once the ballot arrives, the voter marks his or her choices and returns it to the registrar’s office. Mailing through the postal service may be the most common way to return the ballot, but SB202 allows for a drop box at each site of early voting, which in Colquitt County is only one site: Room 201 of the Courthouse Annex. The law requires that it be accessible to voters to deliver their ballots during the time early voting is going on — and only then so that poll workers can keep an eye on it.

Regardless of the way the voter sends the ballot back, it must arrive before 7 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.

If you have any questions, call McCullough at (229) 616-7056.

Early voting

SB202 slightly expands the period in which a voter can cast a ballot early in person, Lewis said. The former law allowed for three weeks of early voting, Monday through Friday, plus one Saturday. The new law adds an additional Saturday, for a total of 17 voting days before Election Day.

Early voting begins May 2 and continues Monday through Saturday until May 20.

Voting machines will be available in Room 201 of the Courthouse Annex 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. those days, Lewis said.

In-person voters — whether casting ballots early or on Election Day — must show a photo ID. That requirement is not new; it dates back to 2008.

Precinct changes

Unrelated to SB202, Colquitt County is changing four of its voting sites beginning with this election, Lewis said. These are the places voters in those precincts go to on Election Day, May 24.

More than two years ago, Colquitt County commissioners appointed a committee to study merging precincts and closing voting locations. Last summer and fall, commissioners discussed the committee’s work but in the end, no voting sites are being closed.

Four voting locations are being moved within their precincts, though. The precincts and their new voting sites are:

• Bridge Creek: Pine Grove Baptist Church, 4103 Bay Rocky Ford Road.

• Hartsfield: Hartsfield United Methodist Church, 158 Bryan Road (off Highway 37), in Hartsfield.

• Murphy: Temple Baptist Church, 2138 U.S. Hwy. 319 S.

• Norman Park: Brand Hall on the old Norman College campus, U.S. Highway 319 North at Weeks Street, Norman Park.

Those moves were in response either to inadequate facilities at the former locations or the county commission’s desire to move voting out of buildings that it has to maintain but uses only a couple of days every-other-year.