As a hurricane threatened Florida, Gov. Rick Scott balked at extending Tuesday’s voter registration deadline for a week as Democrats want, in part because the state has an online system to sign up new voters. But thousands of Floridians have told some elections supervisors in recent days that the system isn’t working — despite claims from the state that the problems had been fixed and that the effort has been “immensely successful.” “A mess!” Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher told POLITICO by email. Florida Democrats are suing Scott’s secretary of state, Ken Detzner, in federal court to extend Florida’s voter registration deadline, which is Tuesday, for at least a week due to the approach of Hurricane Michael.
“We have had hundreds of complaints about the system being down or intermittent all weekend. On 10/6/18 we only received 1 online voter registration, which is highly unusual as we usually get hundreds,” Bucher said. “We have lines in our office and have fielded more than 1,500 calls this morning which is an unusually high volume.”
The controversy erupted in Florida as a hurricane brewed nearby and just a month before the election in which Scott faces Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is seeking is third term. Democrats have accused Scott of engaging in voter suppression over the years — a claim he has denied — and at the least have used the voter registration glitches and deadline controversy as a way of ginning up attention to get more voters registered.
Full Article: ‘A mess’: Florida’s online voter-registration system panned.