U.S. judge rejects emergency litigation to reopen voter registration

Update: A federal judge refused to extend the deadline to register to vote on Wednesday as Floridians braced for Hurricane Milton’s landfall while still grappling with Hurricane Helene’s aftermath. 

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle that said allowing people to register to vote for the November election beyond Oct. 7 would overload supervisors of elections as they prepare for what could be “the most closely watched election.” 

The Florida chapters of the League of Women Voters and the NAACP wanted the court to order Gov. Ron DeSantis to reopen the voter registration process for at least 10 more days. The groups argued that Floridians obeying mandatory evacuation orders on Monday shouldn’t have to choose between their safety and their right to vote. DeSantis on Monday declined to extend the deadline because the hurricane hadn’t hit yet. 

Hinkle didn’t buy that argument, saying during the Wednesday afternoon emergency hearing in Tallahassee that people could have registered to vote online.

“I hope it didn’t come off as insensitive. … If they had evacuated, they still could have registered while evacuating,” Hinkle said, noting that he didn’t think the online registration form would take more than five to 10 minutes to fill out. 

Matletha Bennette, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney representing the plaintiffs, responded that registering to vote at that time would be “the last thing on someone’s mind.” The plaintiffs couldn’t present evidence of any voters saying they tried to register but couldn’t or of any completed voter registration applications that the groups couldn’t submit because of the storm.

In the aftermath of Milton, supervisors of elections will be preoccupied with finding polling places and election workers, said Mohammad Jazil, an attorney representing DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd, leaning into Hinkle’s comments about the burden for supervisors of elections. 

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The plaintiffs have not yet announced plans for any appeal.+++

Two days after Gov. Ron DeSantis refused requests by voting rights groups to extend the voter registration deadline — which fell as the state dealt with two major hurricanes — the League of Women Voters of Florida has asked a federal court to extend the registration process.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, argues that DeSantis’ refusal to extend the deadline in response to two life-threatening natural disasters in the final days of the voter registration period made it unduly difficult or impossible for many Floridians to meet the deadline, which fell on Monday.

The League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund and the Florida State Conference of the NAACP filed the lawsuit through attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“The League is deeply concerned about both the safety and voting rights of Florida’s citizens in the face of impending Hurricane Milton, following Hurricane Helene. In times of crisis, survival becomes the priority,” said Cecile Scoon and Debbie Chandler, co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Florida, in a written statement.

“Governor DeSantis has shown little regard for the storm’s impact on voting rights. While issuing mandatory evacuation orders, he has refused to extend the voter registration deadline, disenfranchising many Floridians who were unable to register due to a disaster beyond their control. With this request ignored, the League is seeking assistance from the courts to protect the right to vote for those affected. Voters should not have to worry about registering to vote while they are trying to protect their lives and communities.”

When the deadline to register for the Nov. 4 elections fell, several counties had already begun issuing evacuation orders as Hurricane Milton emerged as a serious threat to Florida’s west coast. The lawsuit says that “[m]any of the means and locations for aspiring voters to register have been closed as inaccessible or are out of reach on what ordinarily are some of the busiest voter registration days of the year.”

Dismissive

During a press briefing in Tallahassee on Monday, DeSantis dismissed the argument that, with voters in a number of Florida counties distracted by evacuation efforts, he should extend the deadline, which came 29 days before the general election.

“People can register today,” he said. “There’s nothing inhibiting you registering today. The storm has not hit yet.”

“By not extending the voter registration deadline past Monday, the state is leaving thousands of Floridians who’ve been impacted by the storms out of the voting process,” Brad Ashwell, Florida state director with All Voting is Local, told the Phoenix on Tuesday.

“Many Florida voters are facing back-to-back hurricanes, and the state could have done the bare minimum in suspending the deadline, as has been done in the past. This continues a disturbing trend of efforts from state officials to discourage and undermine voter registration efforts by community organizations.”

In their lawsuit, the groups cite as a 2008 Florida Division of Elections analysis showing that registrations submitted in the state leading up to the registration deadline “typically account for 13 to 20 percent of new registrations in presidential years.” They also cite state data to note that approximately 202,471 new voters registered during the final five days of voter registration in 2020.

The lawsuit argues that the refusal to extend the deadline in effect treats similarly situated Floridians differently, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“There is no rational basis for favoring voters in inland areas over voters in storm-affected areas with respect to the right to cast a ballot in the upcoming general election,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers state.

“This disparate treatment of Florida residents based solely upon the area in which they live is unfair and arbitrary, and the State has not and cannot set forth any valid justification for its disparate treatment of members of the electorate.”

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 26, 11 days before the voter registration deadline. States of emergency were declared in 61 of 67 counties for that storm.

On Oct. 3, DeSantis signed an executive order allowing supervisors of elections in 13 counties affected by Hurricane Helene to make changes to voting procedures. However, representatives of civil rights and voting rights groups said Friday that he needed to go further, including by extending the voter registration deadline from Oct. 7 to Oct. 15.