A judge in the US state of Georgia has issued an order extending the deadline for the return and counting of absentee ballots after a county failed to promptly send out some 3,000 mail-in ballots for Tuesday’s election that were requested by the deadline, Reuters quotes the county as saying.

Under Georgia state law, eligible voters may request an absentee ballot up to 11 days before any election. Civil rights groups said Cobb County had violated the law and asked a judge to extend the return deadline on the ballots by three days to Nov 8.

On Thursday, Cobb County said that absentee ballot requests had surged to an average of 750 per day in the last week, with 985 requests submitted on the Oct. 25 deadline.

The election board said it was working with postal and delivery companies to expedite the ballots.

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