A federal judge will hear more evidence on whether to reopen voter registration in Georgia

ATLANTA — At least for now, a federal judge won’t order the state of Georgia to reopen voter registration for November’s elections.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross ruled after a Wednesday hearing that three voting rights groups haven’t yet done enough to prove that damage and disruptions from Hurricane Helene unfairly deprived people of the opportunity to register last week. Monday was Georgia’s registration deadline. Instead, Ross set another hearing for Thursday to consider more evidence and legal arguments.

State officials and the state Republican Party argue it would be a heavy burden on counties to order them to register additional voters as they prepare for early in-person voting to begin next Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed by the Georgia conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda and the New Georgia Project. All three groups say they had to cancel voter registration activities last week. Historically, there’s a spike in Georgia voter registrations just before the deadline, the plaintiffs said.

Georgia has 8.2 million registered voters, according to online records from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. But with Georgia’s presidential race having been decided by only 12,000 votes in 2020, a few thousand votes could make a difference in whether Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris wins the state’s 16 electoral votes. At least 10 lawsuits related to election issues have been filed in Georgia in recent weeks.

The groups say the storm kept people with driver’s licenses from registering online because of widespread power and internet outages in the eastern half of the state and kept people from registering in person because at least 37 county election offices were closed for parts of last week. The lawsuit also notes that mail pickup and delivery was suspended in 27 counties, including the cities of Augusta, Savannah, Statesboro, Dublin and Vidalia.

A federal judge in Florida denied a request to reopen voter registration in that state after hearing arguments Wednesday. The plaintiffs are considering whether to appeal. The lawsuit brought by the Florida chapters of the League of Women Voters and NAACP contends that thousands of people may have missed the registration deadline because they were recovering from Helene or preparing to evacuate from Milton.

A court in South Carolina extended that state’s registration deadline after Helene, and courts in Georgia and Florida did extend registration deadlines after 2016’s Hurricane Matthew. In North Carolina, which was more heavily impacted by Hurricane Helene, the registration deadline isn’t until Friday. Voters there can also register and cast a ballot simultaneously during the state’s early in-person voting period, which runs from Oct. 17 through Nov. 2.

The Georgia plaintiffs argued that the shutdown of voter registration violates their rights under the First Amendment and 14th Amendment, which guarantee equal protection and due process to all citizens. They also say the shutdown violates a provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that requires states to accept voter registrations submitted or mailed up to 30 days before an election.

At least 40 advocacy groups asked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger to extend the registration deadline in affected counties before the Georgia lawsuit was filed.