Amid two damaging hurricanes and ongoing recovery looms a major deadline—November 5th. Election Day. That’s when millions of Floridians will cast their votes. But many are facing uncertainty due to storm damage. A clash has been brewing over how best to accommodate displaced voters and those in difficulty due to the storms.
October 7th was the last day to register to vote in the November election. That’s about a week after Hurricane Helene devastated communities in the Big Bend, and just two days before Milton slammed into heavily populated Central Florida. Several voter and civil rights groups called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to extend the state’s voter registration deadline. But he didn’t.
“People can register today and that’s that," DeSantis said. "There’s nothing inhibiting you registering today. The storm has not hit yet. Now, after the storm, we will see what damage is there, and if I have to do a similar executive order that I did in Ian and that I did for Helene, we’re happy to do it, but we’re not going to change any registration deadline. You can register today and there’s no reason to open that up.”
DeSantis DID make other accommodations. He’s given supervisors flexibility in terms of when and where they place early voting sites. He suspended a state requirement that mail-in ballot requests be made in signed writing when sent to an address other than the one on file – an important consideration when voters are displaced. He did other things, too.
But Brad Ashwell, Florida state director of All Voting is Local, says it’s not enough.
“The governor does deserve some credit for issuing the executive order and giving the supervisors some flexibility," he said. "We’re really happy he did that. But it doesn’t go far enough.”
All Voting is Local and other groups pushed for an extension of the registration deadline. Some brought a lawsuit. Yet following an emergency hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle denied the motion. In his ruling, he said there was no evidence anyone had been unable to vote due to the storms.
Matletha Bennette represents the Southern Poverty Law Center and two other groups that brought the lawsuit.
“There is absolutely harm, and even the judge admitted that there is basically tens of thousands of people that probably would have registered had the voter registration deadline been reopened," she said. "So, the impact is there, and I don’t think there’s a dispute on that.”
Says Wakulla Elections Supervisor Joe Morgan, “What I say to folks that did not get registered prior to is, ‘I am sorry, but we have something on the front wall out here that every county office has, and that is a thing called ‘Voter Responsibilities.’"
Morgan agrees with the governor and with Hinkle’s ruling.
"And at some point, the voter has to take responsibility for whether they’re registered to vote or not," he said.
Morgan also points out that supervisors of elections don’t get deadline extensions.
“Guess what day the election is on this year? It’s on November the 5th. What happens if a storm comes in on November the 4th? We don’t get to wait until November the 7th or November the 15th to cast that election. We have to conduct that election on November the 5th.”
Wakulla County wasn’t seriously damaged by either hurricane, and Morgan is grateful. He’s been participating in local drives to help neighboring Taylor County, which saw communities like Keaton Beach utterly destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Many voters there don’t have homes…let alone mailboxes to receive their ballots.
“And you see these people that have just lost everything…they’ve literally just lost everything," Morgan said. "And you still hear some of them say, ‘I just want to make sure I cast my ballot.’ [long pause] That’s emotional.”
DeSantis has said he’ll consider additional voting accommodations once the state has made a fuller assessment of the damage from Hurricane Milton.
All Voting is Local’s Ashwell points to election changes in Bay County in 2018, following Hurricane Michael, as an example of other things the state could do to help voters:
“They could extend early voting hours from the mandatory eight hours a day to twelve hours a day," he said. "They could allow early voting through Election Day. We really need a comprehensive response here when we’re looking at two back-to-back storms of this scale.”
Ashwell also says the governor’s changes should be posted on all supervisors of election websites, state websites, and floridadisaster.org -- places voters might look for information.
“It’s very unfortunate that he decided not to extend the voter registration deadline," he said, "and it’s hard not to look at that decision as a continuation of ongoing efforts to discourage, undermine and shut down voter registration efforts, namely by community organizations.”
