A federal judge has rejected Democrats’ demands to push elections officials harder to process voter-registration forms, making it more likely that some early voters might have to cast provisional ballots, on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who issued a ruling last week that extended the deadline for registering to vote because of Hurricane Matthew, sided with Secretary of State Ken Detzner in turning aside a request that Walker order elections officials to do more in processing the forms.
Walker said, “There is absolutely no evidence, not one scintilla of evidence, before this court to show that Secretary Detzner is not doing his job,” crediting Detzner with “herculean efforts” to handle an unprecedented situation.
Walker said that the state has had employees working overtime to try to deal with tens of thousands of registration forms that poured in following the extension of the deadline. The deadline had originally been set for Oct. 11 but was extended a week. The judge ordered the longer registration period after Hurricane Matthew lashed the East Coast and prompted evacuation orders for 1.5 million Floridians.
Walker said, “The secretary did that on his own [having employees work extra], clearly in a good-faith effort to comply with this court’s order”.
Democrats wanted Walker to call for more forceful action to make sure that all new, legal voter registration forms have verified by Oct. 23, the day before early voting starts in 50 of Florida’s 67 counties. They also wanted Detzner to be required to issue updated lists of registered voters as the process continues and for the judge “to clarify” that voters whose forms had still been verified could cast regular ballots, instead of provisional ones.
Voting-rights groups who had joined the Democratic Party in filing for the extension of the deadline declined to take a position on the new request.
Voters whose registrations have not been verified by the time they show up at the polls could be required to cast provisional ballots, which are held by elections officials for up to two days after the election in case the voter can be confirmed to be eligible.
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By Prakriti Neogi
