Florida 'failed its citizens': Judge denies extending voter registration deadline; criticizes state's response

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The voter registration deadline will not be extended any further, a judge ruled Friday, but not before blasting state officials for not preparing the website to handle a high volume of registrants on deadline day.

In the 29-page ruling, one word stood out above the rest: Failure. The judge wrote the, "failure on the part of a civil servant, whose responsibility is to run an election system, that will cost thousands of potential voters their fundamental right to vote." 

That civil servant is Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee.

"To have the data system just fail voters at approximately 5 p.m. on the deadline to register to vote, it's tragic," said Carolyn Thompson, voter protection advocate with Advancement Project National Office, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Seven civil and voting rights groups sued the state after the online registration website crashed Monday as thousands of Floridians tried to sign up before the deadline.

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Lee extended the deadline to 7 p.m. Tuesday, but didn't make the decision public until Tuesday afternoon. The plaintiffs wanted potential voters to have more time to sign up.

The judge, however, denied the request, worrying it would put too much pressure on elections officials so close to Election Day.

"This hurts," Thompson said. "It hurts families that participated in citizenship ceremonies confident and happy that now they can voice -- they have a voice. To be told, 'we failed you. We can put a man on the moon and we can't get a voter registration system in this state that works."

Those words echoed the judge's last sentence in the ruling, in which he wrote, "this Court notes that every man who has stepped foot on the Moon launched from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. Yet, Florida has failed to figure out how to run an election properly."

The judge also noted, based on data he reviewed, more than 20,000 potential voters didn't get the chance to register.

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Thompson and Jorge Vasquez, the Power and Democracy Director with the Advancement Project National Office, wonder if the estimate should be even higher.

"The secretary of state, within the last four weeks -- three weeks really -- sent out letter to two  million individuals who are eligible to vote and asked these individuals, 'come to my website, trust my website,'" Vasquez said.

"It is unfair to build people's hopes up, invite them to the table and not have enough chairs," Thompson added.

At this point, a spokesperson for the plaintiffs said there is no plan to appeal the ruling.

Neither the governor nor the secretary of state responded to requests for comment.