TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Four organizations head to court on Thursday to demand two more days of voter registration for Florida voters.
The groups -- Dream Defenders, New Florida Majority, Organize Florida and Florida Immigrant Coalition -- filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, one day after the state’s website experienced problems in the final hours of online voter registration on Monday night.
“When they tried to access the website it was giving an error message,” said Tessa Petit, civic engagement director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “Our first reaction was how can we get the Division of Elections to give Floridians more time.”
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Secretary of State Laurel Lee announced an extension until Tuesday at 7 p.m., but the lawsuit is seeking more time.
“A lot of these people get maybe one break. They have two or three jobs, and they get one break on one day of the week, and that’s the one time that they had to do this,” Petit said.
“State elections officials were warned well in advance that the online voter registration site was vulnerable to problems resulting from high usage‚” the lawsuit claimed.
The suit seeks a judge’s approval to giving potential voters two more days of registration beginning from the day the order would be signed.
Attorneys for the state responded on Wednesday night saying, “The plaintiffs bear a heavy burden here. They have not met it.”
“We can only hope for the best and hope that at some point they will have a -- people usually call it a come to Jesus moment,” Petit said.
The virtual court hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 8 a.m.