The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Governor Nathan Deal and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp after they denied to extend deadlines in the Georgia regions affected by Hurricane Matthew. According to the lawsuit, with the power outages the hurricane left in its path, many regions with predominantly minority residents, were unable to register to vote in time.
The Hurricane struck the coast just days before Georgia’s Oct. 11 registration deadline. Citizens in Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Liberty, Glynn and McIntosh were affected. Mandatory evacuations and power outages meant that some of the more than 500,000 residents were unable to complete the process and submit their applications.
Federal Judge William T. Moore ruled against ACLU and decided not to extend deadlines for five of the six coastal counties affected. Chatham county received an extension in a separate lawsuit which ended on the Oct. 18.
The county, which includes Savannah, is home to more than 203,000 residents of voting age, suffered severe winds and rain. Causing downed trees and power outages.
Kathleen Burch, an attorney for the ACLU described Judge Moore’s ruling as disappointing.
“Unfortunately this was a major loss for the individuals in the six coastal counties that were evacuated. It was our position that because there was mandatory evacuation order and that the Governor had requested that residents not go back to their homes, that they knew that voters were not going to be able to register to vote,”she said.
The lawsuit claims Kemp and Deal illegally refused to extend the deadline while other states affected by Hurricane Matthew including Florida and North Carolina extended registration deadlines for their voters.
In Florida, where Matthew inflicted around $218 million in property damage, the original deadline was on Oct. 11 but after Gov. Rick Scott refused to move the deadline, U.S District Judge Mark Walker extended it until Oct. 18.
North Carolina suffered an estimated $1.5 billion in property damages and 26 deaths after Matthew. The deadline there was extended from Oct. 14 to Oct. 19.
This prompted the ACLU to bring about the suit as a result of the state’s refusal to extend the deadline and allow residents the opportunity to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
In his ruling, Judge Moore argued that Hurricane Matthew made it “difficult but not impossible” for residents of the five counties to register. However, some residents did not have electricity and county offices were closed as a result of the evacuation order.
“The fact that the state has an online registration system is not relevant for this purpose and the reason for that is the people who were evacuated didn’t have electricity,” Burch said. “The fact that there might have been another way to do the registration is not relevant because it was not something that actually could have been done.”
The ACLU’s lawsuit also claimed that Deal and Kemp’s failure to extend deadlines discriminated against minorities in the region. Of the 200,000 people of voting age in Chatham, over 40 percent are African American and Latino.
“What we know and what the governor and secretary of state also know is that the highest period of voter registration is the last few days before the deadline,” Burch said. “And what we also know is that percentage wise there is a higher percentage of minorities who are registering during that time.”
Burch said that this voting pattern trend could be seen dating back to multiple election cycles. She also said that the percentage of minorities in Georgia’s coastal region is higher than that of any other part of the state.
The affected counties, Bryan, Chatham, Liberty, Glynn, Camden and McIntosh have established voting patterns. Chatham usually votes democratic, with the exception of the 2000 general election where President George W. Bush won the county over by less than 300 votes. Camden, Glynn, McIntosh, and Bryan typically vote Republican while Liberty usually votes democratic.
Candice Broce, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Kemp, said that each individual county is responsible for processing their own applications, not the Secretary of State’s office.
“In Georgia, the Secretary of State’s office does not process voter registration applications and a lot of people don’t realize that. Even though the ACLU filed suit against the governor and Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Secretary of State does not have the legal ability to extend voter registration deadlines.”
Broce said that this was clear in Georgia’s statute. She also said that by the time the suit was filed, early voting was already underway.
“The suit called for a registration extension across the entire state. We couldn’t waste valuable time and resources,” Burch said.
Broce said that under the suit, registration would have been extended across the entire state. Meaning counties unaffected by Hurricane Matthew would have received additional days to register.
Officials in the affected counties Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Liberty, McIntosh, and Glynn did not request an extension because they felt they had successfully completed registration, although Broce said they had the ability to do so.
“They didn’t even request an extension on the deadline, they could have done that without the ACLU,” Broce said. “They have the ability to go to a Judge and say ‘Hey we didn’t have the ability to process applications because of the threat of Hurricane Matthew.’ They didn’t feel that they needed that.”
A large amount of people affected were teenagers voting for the first time, according to Burch. But Broce said that the Secretary of State’s office has done a lot of outreach and initiated programs to ensure that they and everyone else were able to register.
“We have online registration now so if you have a Georgia driver’s license or a state issued I.D, it will only take you a few minutes to get registered,” Broce said. “We also have a smartphone app. The hardcopy application is not as efficient time-wise, so we have a lot of technology to make the process easier.”
