Georgia’s highest court has ruled that over 3,000 absentee ballots might not be counted if they are received after election day, despite an error by local election officials.

All the ballots are in Cobb County, a northern suburb of Atlanta that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and could be a deciding factor in a state where Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are tied in the opinion polls.

Biden won the state with 49.5% of the vote in 2020, compared to 49.2% for Trump.

Trump famously called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the 2020 election asking him to “find 11,780 votes” that Trump needed to beat Biden in Georgia.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has taken a case to protect the rights of Cobb County voters in the 2024 presidential election, after officials inadvertently delayed mailing out some absentee ballots.

Newsweek sought email comment on Tuesday from the RNC, the ACLU and the Cobb County Election Board.

Among the plaintiffs taking the case with the ACLU are Naomi Ayota, a 19-year-old who attends college in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Harrison “Grant” Simmel, a 20-year-old who attends college in Boulder, Colorado and Gabriel Dickson, a resident of Cobb County, who requested an absentee ballot because he is legally blind.

“It is incredibly burdensome for him to vote in person,” the ACLU lawsuit states.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that all Cobb County absentee ballots must be received by the time polls close at 7pm on Tuesday.

Any ballots that are received after that time will be held until the case can be fully litigated.

The Georgia Supreme Court overruled a Cobb County judge who had extended the deadline until 5pm on Friday, to compensate for the delay in sending out the ballots.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Georgia Republican Party had appealed that decision to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that the Cobb County judge’s deviation from election rules is “baseless.”

“The Plaintiffs claim a burden on their right to vote, but the Georgia Constitution does not guarantee a right to vote by mail. Voters still have many options to vote, including by voting in person or delivering their absentee ballots in person,” their appeal stated.

In its initial lawsuit, the ACLU complained that “plaintiffs and more than 3,000 other lawfully registered Cobb County voters are on the brink of disenfranchisement in the November 5 election because the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration was unable to issue their absentee ballots on time. Defendants admit the legal violation.”

“It is unlikely that all affected voters will even receive their ballots by November 2, particularly because hundreds of the affected voters are temporarily living out of state or overseas,” it states.