TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis extended the voter registration deadline to 7 p.m. EDT on Oct. 6 for eligible people.
The extension comes after issues plagued the state's voter registration system Monday, which was the same day of the deadline to register for the 2020 general election.
The system crash may have stopped thousands from registering.
DeSantis extended the deadline that expired Monday until 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday. In addition to online registration, DeSantis ordered elections, motor vehicle and tax collectors offices to stay open until 7 p.m. local time for anyone who wants to register in person.
Early Monday evening, some users reported the site loading slowly or not loading at all.
Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee on Monday blamed the problems on a "high volume" of people trying to use the site. As a result, the state increased capacity. She said the website was accessed by an “unprecedented” 1.1 million requests per hour.
While Lee on Monday said the capacity issues only lasted about 15 minutes, some people reported not being able to access the site several hours after capacity was increased.
Lee and Gov. DeSantis met Tuesday morning to go over the status of the online voter registration system and the challenges the unprecedented amount of online traffic brought to the website.
Lee said the state will investigate to make sure this was not a deliberate attack against the voting process.
It's not the first time the website has experienced issues.
Brad Ashwell, Florida state director with the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said Monday that his organization has been trying to work with the state since problems first arose in 2018, a year after the site was launched.
"We’ve been warning them this is likely to happen for several years, and they’ve had every opportunity to take precautions to prevent this from happening," Ashwell said.
“It’s unfortunate that voters are going to pay the price for lack of preparation by the state."
In addition to issues ahead of the registration deadline in 2018, Ashwell says they saw similar problems as recently as March ahead of the state's presidential preference primary.
Requests to work with the state, and even an offer to bring in an independent third-party to perform a "stress-test" on the system, have been ignored, Ashwell said.
You can register to vote online here.
Not sure if you're already registered? You can check here.
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