Renzo Downey
Voting rights organizations want the Department of State to reopen voting applications for two days after online failures seven hours before the registration deadline.
Secretary of State Laurel Lee has extended the voting registration deadline to 7 p.m. Tuesday following an influx of registrants that downed her department’s online portal Monday. The site received 1.1 million visits per hour over the final stretch of registration, which ended at midnight.
But a lengthy list of organizations say the department’s extension is not enough time and not enough notice for registrants to file to vote. The department should notify Floridians through print media, radio, its website and social media to highlight the expanded opportunities to register, they argue.
Advancement Project National Office, Demos, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer filed the lawsuit on behalf of Dream Defenders, Florida Immigrant Coalition, New Florida Majority and Organize Florida. The complaint, filed at the federal level in the Northern District of Florida, targets both Lee and Gov. Ron DeSantis for the system’s failures.
“We did not have an effective alternative means to assist eligible unregistered Floridians to register before the deadline,” said Dream Defenders Communications Director Nailah Summers. “Given that reality, we are concerned that many people who wanted to vote will be unable to cast a ballot on Election Day.”
Monday was not the first time the website has crashed from overuse at critical times. The online voter registration site crashed during book closing before the 2018 General Election, in February 2020 before the presidential primary and before the August 2020 primary. The site also went down on or around September 22, 2019, which was National Voter Registration Day.
On top of online applications, Lee’s order reopened registration until 7 p.m. at county supervisor of elections offices, local tax collectors’ offices and Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ driver’s license offices. Paper applications postmarked by Tuesday will also be accepted.
Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos, called refusing to extend the deadline beyond 7 p.m. “outright voter suppression.”
Officials should have prepared for increased traffic given the interest in this year’s election and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has kept many people indoors and discouraged in-person registration options, the suit alleges. But the problems were “so predictable” that groups began anticipating outages as early as July.
“Florida’s OVR system has a history of malfunctioning and crashing in advance of major deadlines like the last day of registration before a major election,” said Organize Florida Executive Director Stephanie Porta. “Advocacy groups should not have to create toolkits anticipating the state’s OVR system crashing. In the midst of a global health pandemic, Floridians should not be denied the right to vote because the Secretary of State can’t properly update and maintain a website.”
The suit requests that registration remains open for more than 48 hours, from a decision to midnight two days following any court order.
During a press conference in The Villages Tuesday, DeSantis defended the state’s online registration portal and the decision to open online alternatives up to 7 p.m., after most people get off work.
“You can have the best site in the world. Sometimes there are hiccups on it,” he said.
