On Monday night, as the clock ticked at midnight in Florida to register to vote, people across the state encountered issues with the state’s registration website, sparking frustrated calls on Florida leaders to extend the deadline
Just before 6 p.m., Secretary of State Laurel Lee posted on Twitter announcing that website functions had been restored and a « high volume » of visitors had caused delays of approximately 15 minutes
Destinee Morin, a recent high school graduate from St Cloud, who is already enrolled, spent much of Monday unsuccessfully updating the website, Registertovotefloridagov, in an effort to enroll two friends, both teenagers and applicants to the voter for the first time
« If the website is down it’s not fair Lots of people went to this website today because they didn’t know it was their last day to sign up », she declared « I really hope they prolong it »
Carl Morelli, a 23-year-old Gainesville resident who wanted to update his listing after moving to a new apartment in August, first tried the website at 9:15 p.m.m but ran into problems after completing the first step After more than two hours of changing internet browser and even computer, he almost gave up
« It was the last 10 minutes and I was about to throw in the towel, but I said, ‘Let me do a few more tries,' » he told ABC News
« I was really happy and excited to be able to vote, » he said
Kyle Redula, 20, a student at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, was thrilled to register to vote for the first time, only to find himself wrestling for hours with the website Monday Starting from 10 pm it was still getting error messages
“This is really something that I have been looking forward to,” he told ABC News “Considering that this is the State Department website and is causing me problems. problems, it was frustrating «
Problems with the website prompted a response on Twitter from Nikki Fried, Florida’s Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner, and the only Democrat elected from the state of Florida
« The voter registration deadline is only hours away and the online voter registration website is down, » she wrote Speaking to Government Ron DeSantis, a Republican, Fried called the situation « unacceptable » and urged him to « fix it »
In a subsequent post, Fried wrote that Monday night’s developments amounted to a « voter suppression » and called on Lee and DeSantis to extend the registration deadline
Lee has not issued a public statement since announcing the issues were supposed to be resolved, and there is no indication yet that an extension will be granted
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News from the world – US – Hours before deadline, Florida voter registration website malfunctions
