Obama-Appointed Judge Rejects Extending Georgia Voter Registration

A federal judge in Georgia rejected arguments for the state to reopen voter registration ahead of November’s election due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Helene.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2013, said in a verbal ruling on Thursday that she would not extend Georgia’s voter registration deadline, which closed on Monday. Three groups had sued the state to reopen voter registration and extend it until October 14, arguing that devastation from Helene got in the way of people being able to register for the general election.
Ross said in her ruling that the groups did not sufficiently prove that residents were harmed by Helene’s impacts. She also said that there is no state law that grants Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who are both Republicans, the power to extend the voter registration deadline.
“I don’t think we had even one voter who had been harmed or would likely be harmed by failure to register to vote,” Ross said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press (AP) report on the matter.
The lawsuit was filed by the Georgia conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda and the New Georgia Project. Kemp and Raffensperger, the defendants in the case, had argued that the state’s election process would be interrupted if the deadline for voter registration was extended. The state had pointed out that absentee ballots have already been mailed and early in-person voting was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, October 15.
Ross said that the “harm to the state’s interests outweighs the plaintiffs’ interests” in the case.
The plaintiffs had argued that they had to cancel their voter registration activities last week after Helene ripped through the Southeast as a Category 4 storm. The hurricane brought widespread flooding and damage stretching from Florida’s Big Bend Region north to the Appalachian Mountains. At least 230 people have died due to the storm.
The groups behind the lawsuit said that voter registrations in Georgia usually spike just before the state’s deadline. Amir Badat, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told Ross that Helene caused “in many circumstances, complete disenfranchisement for prospective voters.”
State lawyers argued in court that there was a difference between an individual’s right to vote and the right of a nonprofit to run a voter registration drive.
In an email to Newsweek on Thursday, the Georgia NAACP conference said that it plans to “continue to fight relentlessly for voter access in Georgia” despite Ross’ disappointing ruling.
The conference’s president, Gerald Griggs, said in the statement that the NAACP is “committed to ensuring that every citizen’s voice is heard at the ballot box. Securing and protecting voting rights is fundamental to our democracy, and we will not rest until full and fair access is guaranteed for all Georgians.”
Georgia is considered a key battleground heading into the 2024 presidential election, with Vice President Kamala Harris hoping to hold to a recent streak of wins for Democrats in the historically red state. Two recent polls by Emerson College and Redfield & Wilton Strategies suggest that the battle for Georgia between Harris and Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump is dead even.
Other states in Helene’s path have had similar voter registration issues arise. In Florida, which was hit by a second major hurricane in less than two weeks on Wednesday, a federal judge denied a request to reopen registration after hearing arguments ahead of Hurricane Milton making landfall. The plaintiffs in the case are considering whether to repeal the decision.
South Carolina, on the other hand, extended their voter registration deadline by 10 days, until October 14, after a suit was brought by the state’s Democratic Party. In North Carolina, another important swing state for November, staff officials imposed emergency voting measures in response to Helene but did not need to change its voter registration deadline since it has same-day registration during early voting through November 2.
Update 10/10/24 8:39 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.