Final-minute requests reportedly crush Florida voter registration problem

Florida’s secretary of notify has prolonged the closing date for voter registration to 7pm on the present time. Registration formally closed final night in the dull of night, however complications with the notify’s online page refrained from some Floridians from winding up their registration in time.

Laurel Lee, the Florida secretary of notify appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, announced the trade after noon on Tuesday, giving voters who overlooked the previous closing date lower than seven hours to contain a study out again.

Voting rights advocates sued Lee on Tuesday morning, arguing that the procure page complications had disadvantaged Floridians of their right to vote. They pointed out that Florida’s voter registration online page has a historical past of crashing under heavy loads.

The lawsuit says that Florida officials had been again and again warned that the enlighten was at possibility of recur because the closing date neared. Nonetheless in keeping with the plaintiffs, officials did miniature to handle the enlighten, and the critics’ concerns had been vindicated. Heaps of voters encountered complications with the positioning in the hours sooner than the heart of the night closing date.

Certainly, paperwork got by the government transparency neighborhood American Oversight uncover that this year’s registration fiasco is a rerun of complications the notify suffered throughout the 2018 election cycle. That year, a immense number of users submitted suggestions to Florida officials reporting that online page complications had refrained from them from registering. “THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” one voter wrote in a July 2018 e-mail thread with notify officials.

In a practice-up pretty filing on the present time, the plaintiffs argued that the 7pm closing date gives “woefully insufficient time to educate voters and allow them to utilize” the notify’s voter registration procedure. “Voters who are busy with work and caregiving tasks need beyond regular time to assemble the different to register to vote the least bit distinguished,” the plaintiffs wrote.

They are seeking an extension till nighttime on the 2d day after a court docket ruling. That will give voters at least 48 hours to complete the registration direction of. The court docket has scheduled a listening to on the distress for 8: 30am on Wednesday morning.

As I write this, Florida voters contain about three more hours to register—assuming the closing date is no longer always prolonged again. When you’re an unregistered Floridian, that it’s likely you’ll register here or talk about about with a local voter registration place of job.