Why aren't hurricane-impacted states trying to extend voter registration?

UPDATE (Oct. 10, 2024, 2:15 p.m. ET): Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening, leaving a trail of destruction that killed at least 11 people and left millions without power.

With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall in Florida Wednesday night, many people in the Sunshine State are bracing for potentially historic devastation. Meanwhile, federal officials are questioning the Federal Emergency Management Agency‘s capacity to handle another catastrophic storm so soon after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc across North Carolina and five other states.

Given Helene’s human toll and Milton’s expected disaster, you might ask, “Who could possibly think about an election at a time like this?” And yet, for election administrators in these states, there is little choice. A presidential election waits for no one.

And so, from Tallahassee to Charlotte, state officials already have consulted applicable statutes and regulations and modified typical procedures to ensure that their residents can freely and fairly exercise their rights to vote.

In particular, North Carolina’s five-member board of elections voted unanimously on Monday to give voters in 13 counties multiple accommodations, including more time to request and receive ballots by mail. The board also gave county boards latitude — so long as a bipartisan majority is in favor — to change their schedules and hours for early voting, which begins on Oct. 17, among other things. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis implemented similar adjustments for 13 counties in his state through an executive order he signed last week.

On one hand, they should be applauded for their quick thinking and flexibility in the face of disaster. But they should also be asked whether the measures they've taken went far enough, especially with respect to eligible voters who had yet to register before Helene hit. To date, none of the impacted states' officials with authority over elections has voluntarily extended registration deadlines, even as roads remain buckled, phone lines have not been restored, and designated polling sites are damaged, inaccessible and unusable.

In North Carolina, that's perhaps understandable. After all, prospective voters can register and then vote on the same day if they go to an early voting site between Oct. 17 and Nov. 2.

But the failure to protect potential, eligible voters in other places makes little sense.

For instance, in South Carolina, as of Oct. 4, “[s]everal county voter registration offices were closed for days before being able to reopen for registration,” while offices in three counties remained closed, according to the South Carolina Election Commission. Yet neither the attorney general nor the governor took action to extend the voter registration deadline.

Therefore, the South Carolina Democratic Party sued, asking a court to order the state's election commission to extend the registration deadline. And on Oct. 4 — the deadline for in-person registration and just days before the deadlines for electronic and mail-in registration — Judge Daniel Coble gave all South Carolinians until Oct. 14 to register, whether in person or by mail, email, fax or internet.

Coble, who was initially appointed by GOP Gov. Henry McMaster and allowed the state to enforce its six-week abortion ban earlier this year, might not seem the likeliest judge to take what seems like a liberal approach to voting access. But faced with the choice of unfairly denying the franchise to hurricane victims versus giving other potential voters extra, unearned days to register, he erred on the side of facilitating all citizens' ability to vote.

Voting rights advocates in other Helene-impacted states have taken notice. On the day of Georgia's voter registration deadline, Oct. 7, the NAACP's Georgia chapter and two other groups filed a lawsuit in Atlanta federal court seeking an immediate extension to Oct. 14 as well. Noting that there is historically a spike in voter registration right before the deadline, these plaintiffs argued that there are likely "thousands of voters who could not register while power was down, roads were impassible and county election and post offices were closed."

Declarations from local leaders underscore how some registration efforts had to be abandoned in the wake of Helene. For example, one Georgia non-profit focused on voter registration, education and turnout efforts in historically marginalized communities not only canceled all door-to-door canvassing efforts in two Georgia counties between Oct. 4 and 7, but also could not pick up and drop off voter registration materials to the board of elections in one of those counties because its office has been closed since Sept. 27.

Indeed, on Oct. 8, just one day after the Georgia deadline, the state's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, issued an executive order extending a state of emergency for nearly 70 Georgia counties through Oct. 16. Yet judging by his statements, Georgia's secretary of state seems to think Helene will not cause anything more than minimal disruption to this election if that. His website similarly suggests the most important election-related accommodations necessary for Georgians impacted by Helene are allowing them to receive their absentee ballots at a new, temporary address or helping them obtain a new state ID if theirs was lost due to Helene.

In the meantime, a hearing was held in the Georgia case on the afternoon of Oct. 9. There, Judge Eleanor Ross denied the plaintiffs' request for one form of emergency relief that would extend the deadline, but scheduled a second hearing for Oct. 10 where, according to NAACP Conference of Georgia President Gerald Griggs, she asked for testimony from prospective voters who were not able to register because of the hurricane. After the hearing, Griggs remarked, "So we lost the battle but might be able to win the war."

And then there is Florida, where, on Monday, Florida's registration deadline, DeSantis issued a new state of emergency for 54 counties and suspended tolls across Central and Western Florida to allow residents to begin recommended or mandated evacuations. Yet DeSantis also maintained Monday that the registration deadline should not be extended, arguing, "People can register today. There's nothing inhibiting you registering today. The storm," meaning Hurricane Milton, "has not hit yet."

That did not sit well with Florida's NAACP or its League of Women Voters, which, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday to extend the registration deadline, arguing that between Helene recovery and Milton preparation, it was "impossible or unduly burdensome" for many Floridians to register by Oct. 7.

In that case, too, a judge held a hearing on the plaintiffs' request for emergency relief for the afternoon of Oct. 9. He ruled against extending the deadline. As of publication time, the plaintiffs had not decided whether to appeal.

Will Georgians ultimately get the relief South Carolinians have already received — and that Floridians have been thus far denied? Watch this space.