Florida voter registration deadline extended to Oct. 18
TALLAHASSEE -- A federal judge Wednesday extended Florida’s voter registration deadline to Oct. 18 due to Hurricane Matthew, pointing to a gap in state law he described as untenable.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said Hurricane Matthew shut down counties along Florida’s Atlantic coast and took away the opportunity to register to vote before the state’s original Tuesday deadline.
“There is no right more precious than to have a voice in this election,” Walker said during the 40-minute hearing at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee. “This preliminary injunction is not a suggestion about what the Legislature should do.
“What’s changed here was the storm, and that’s why we’re here.”
Walker’s order also extends the deadline for county supervisors of elections to submit early voting plans to the Florida Department of State by one week to Oct. 17. This gives local election officials more time to plan around sites that were damaged by the storm.
Walker called Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho to testify. Sancho said his staff slept in county and state offices after Hurricane Hermine as they prepared for the Nov. 8 election. The storm, albeit much weaker than Matthew, damaged 80 percent of Tallahassee's power grid when it hit Sept. 1.
“If what happened to us in September happened to us now, we would be put under tremendous strain,” Sancho said. “It’s something I would never want to see in Tallahassee.”
Federal judge extends Florida's voter registration deadline
Walker’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed Sunday by the Florida Democratic Party asking the federal court to move the voter registration date to Oct. 18. The suit named as defendants Gov. Rick Scott and appointee Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Walker issued a temporary injunction order Monday that extended voter registration until Wednesday.
He wrote in the order that state law provided Scott with no power to move the registration deadline.
During the hearing, Walker said that was a “gap in Florida law that makes it untenable.”
Lawyers for Scott and Detzner did not argue a position before Walker. Scott had rejected a request from Democratic leaders on the night before Matthew hit to extend the registration deadline. On Tuesday, his office released a statement that the Republican governor would not object to Walker’s order.
“The state will follow the court’s decision and discuss with the Legislature possible amendments to current law during the upcoming legislative session,” said Jackie Schutz, a governor’s spokeswoman.
Fellow Republican governors in South Carolina and Georgia already had extended voter registration deadlines due to Matthew.
State Democrat Party lawyer Kevin Hamilton said Scott issued emergency orders before Matthew that virtually shut down counties along the Atlantic coast, even those that were ultimately spared. Other counties north of Cape Canaveral that were thrashed by flooding, hurricane-force winds and massive power outages lost time to submit voter registration cards.
“Allowing citizens of Florida an additional seven days is modest,” Hamilton said. “These citizens need a fair opportunity to vote after a storm has impacted their property.”
Roughly 32,000 Florida homes and businesses remained without power as of Wednesday afternoon. As many as 1.1 million customers were without power after the storm left the state Friday night, according to information provided by the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Hamilton also said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services postponed ceremonies for newly minted Americans throughout the state’s east coast due to Matthew. They were rescheduled after the Tuesday deadline, which left no chance for the new citizens to register to vote.
"These were people who would have otherwise wanted to register in those last days," Hamilton said.
At least two other voting rights groups filed petitions supporting the Democrats’ lawsuit. Mi Familia Vota Education Fund lawyer Nancy Abudu said about 116,000 Florida residents registered to vote in 2012 in the last week before the deadline, and the majority were minorities and young people, ages 18 to 29.