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.

The plaintiffs in the case told AP that they disagreed with Ross’ decision but that they are “still going to fight to make sure every voter’s rights are protected.”

“We believe voters were harmed, but this doesn’t deter us,” said Helen Butler, the executive director of the Coalition for the People’s Agenda.

This is a developing story that will be updated as information becomes available.