Judges in Georgia and North Carolina on Friday ordered state election officials to extend voter registration deadlines in some counties due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Matthew, which forced thousands of people to evacuate and temporarily closed some government offices. The judges’ rulings came after Georgia’s governor and the executive director of North Carolina’s state board of elections declined to extend the deadlines. In North Carolina, where the traditional deadline to register was Friday, a state judge ordered election officials to extend it until next Wednesday in 36 eastern counties affected by extensive flooding from the hurricane that left 24 dead. Matthew killed a total of 41 people in the US, and more than 500 in Haiti. In Georgia, William T Moore Jr, a US district court judge, ruled residents of Chatham County, which includes Savannah, must be allowed to register through next Tuesday a week after the original deadline passed. Powerful winds, heavy rain and flooding from Matthew led to downed trees, building damage and power outages around Chatham County, which has 278,000 residents.
The two states join Florida and South Carolina in extending their deadlines. After Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, refused to extend his state’s 11 October deadline, a federal judge first extended it by a day and then later to 18 October. South Carolina extended its original 7 October deadline, and will now accept registration forms postmarked no later than Tuesday.
In North Carolina, a presidential battleground state where Barack Obama won by about 14,000 votes in 2008 and lost to Mitt Romney by 92,000 votes four years later, the state Democratic party sued the state board’s executive director, Kim Strach, earlier Friday. Strach had allowed some leeway by agreeing to accept mailed applications through Wednesday, but the Democrats said that wasn’t enough.
Full Article: Voter registration in Georgia and North Carolina must be extended, judges rule | World news | The Guardian.