Judge extends Florida voter registration deadline

He set a hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. for arguments for a longer extension. The board’s public information officers didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Walker said he did not believe that Scott had authority to use his emergency powers to waive the deadline. The governor declined, saying Floridians “had enough time to register” before the October 6 evacuation orders.

“If aspiring eligible Florida voters are barred from registering to vote, then those voters are stripped of one of our most precious freedoms”, Walker said.

In this case, it’s because of the devastation from Hurricane Matthew, which washed across eastern North Carolina this past weekend and brought flooding not witnessed since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Otherwise, voter registration would have ended on Tuesday in Florida.

“We’ve really moved the margins in so many of these states”, said Chris Young, the national field director for the Republican National Committee.

“Voters need to take advantage of this opportunity”, Supervisor of Election Travis Hart said. With Florida’s vote expected to be so close in November, and with its rich pot of electoral votes up for grabs, all the political stops are being pulled out in this tiff.

The League of Women Voters of Florida and other voter registration groups, such as the New Florida Majority and Mi Familia Vota, also supported the extension.

The initial petition argued that Matthew constituted a “daunting” and “life-threatening obstacle” to registration.

Supervisor Vicky Oakes, as always, says if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call her office, 904-823-2238.

With Election Day less than a month away, voting already has started in locations across the country. The suit named as defendants Gov. Rick Scott and appointee Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Both Republicans and Democrats have intensified their voter registration efforts since.

Republican governors from Georgia and SC extended their states’ voter registration deadlines because of Hurricane Matthew.

Almost 1.5 million Florida residents were told Thursday to evacuate because of Hurricane Matthew, which passed several hundred miles offshore but produced heavy rains and powerful winds in the northern part of the state.

The Clinton campaign has undertaken an ambitious effort to find likely supporters, identifying and modeling the voting behavior of every voter in the swing states.