Rick Scott argued people had enough time to register to vote prior to Hurricane Matthew. | Getty Florida Dems sue Gov. Scott over voter registration in wake of Hurricane Matthew

The Florida Democratic Party sued Gov. Rick Scott and his top election official Sunday in federal court where it asked a judge to extend voter registration in the nation’s biggest swing state for an extra week due to Hurricane Matthew.

Scott, the chairman of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s super PAC, last week refused the Hillary Clinton campaign’s request to extend Tuesday’s voter-registration deadline in Florida, saying people had enough time to register to vote beforehand.


“Look, this is, this is politics,” Scott said when asked about the political ramifications of his decision, the Democrats lawsuit points out.

The suit says that Floridians’ rights under the Voting Rights Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendment are being violated by Scott’s decision. Citizens in the hurricane-threatened counties are being unfairly and unequally denied a chance to register to vote, the suit says, because government offices were closed last week, postal service was shut down and Scott had issued dire warnings telling people to leave such as: “This storm will kill you. Time is running out.”

Amid Scott’s refusal to extend the deadline, thousands of potential voters might not be able to register to cast ballots in this election. And many of them, statistics indicate, might be Democrats or those who often favor Democratic candidates: young, poor or minority voters, who tend to sign up to vote at the last minute in greater numbers than Republicans.

With the race close in Florida, those thousands of potential voters could have an outsize impact on the presidential election. If Trump loses the swing state, he loses the election.

“Unfortunately, Governor Scott’s appropriate concern for Floridians’ physical safety has been matched by his disregard for their fundamental right to vote,” the Democrats’ lawyer, Mark Herron, wrote in a memo attached to the lawsuit, which asks a judge in the Northern District of Florida to extend the voter registration deadline until Oct. 18.

“Governor Scott’s refusal to extend the registration deadline does not promote any state interest—let alone one that justifies certain disenfranchisement of thousands of Floridians.

“Governor Scott’s failure to extend the deadline will disproportionately and unfairly burden the rights of Floridians with the most to lose: those directly in the path of Hurricane Matthew,” Herron wrote.

“Failure to extend the deadline will also disproportionately affect members of Florida’s minority communities. Simply put, Floridians who have borne the brunt of Hurricane Matthew should not also be forced to forfeit their voting rights.”



Scott’s office said it is reviewing the lawsuit along with the office of his appointee, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who was also named in the suit.

Scott’s defenders argue that the governor has no power under Florida law to extend the voter registration deadline. Democrats point out, however, he has emergency powers due to the hurricane and other hurricane-stricken states, such as South Carolina, extended their deadlines as Hurricane Matthew menaced.

In Florida, the storm effectively led to the shutdown of government from Miami-Dade County in the South to Duval County on the Georgia border. Some inland counties also closed services, but many of the 67 did not. Clinton’s campaign says that gives an unfair advantage to inland residents when compared with those on the East Coast. Northeast Florida was the hardest-hit area of the state, and hundreds of thousands were still without power Sunday.

This election, the Florida Democratic Party has registered more voters than the Republican Party. Democrats have submitted about 488,000 voter-registration forms, while Republicans have submitted roughly 60,000, according to state reports. In all, about 1.9 million voter-registration forms have been collected by nearly 700 groups statewide.

The final days of voter registration in Florida often brings out more people who register as Democrats or who, though they register as no-party-affiliation voters, fit the profile of a Democratic voter.

In 2012, for instance, more than 156,000 people registered to vote in the last days before the October deadline — and Republicans were greatly out-registered by Democrats and independents, many of whom were young and/or minority, according to Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political science professor, who studies the state’s voter-registration rolls and trends.

Of Florida’s 12.5 million active registered voters, about 38 percent are Democrats and 36 percent are Republicans.

Democrats are also suing the state to give voters a chance to clear up a signature mismatch problem on their absentee ballots so that their vote isn’t canceled.

So far, Scott has shown no interest in changing the elections requirements. In 2012, Scott also refused Democratic requests to extend early voting hours due to long lines. This year, elections supervisors have more flexibility with early voting hours. Clinton’s campaign wants as many early voting hours as possible, but not every county election supervisor plans to open the stations for as long as her campaign has requested.

As for the voter registration controversy, Scott was unmoved by requests to extend the days.

“Everybody has had a lot of time to register,” Scott said last week when asked about the deadline extension. “On top of that, we’ve got lots of opportunities to vote: Early voting, absentee voting and Election Day. So, I don’t intend to make any changes.”