The Republican governor of Florida says that he will not extend the deadline for voter registration in the state despite the fact that Hurricane Matthew has hit the battleground state just days before the Tuesday deadline.
CNN reports that Hillary Clinton’s campaign asked Florida officials on Thursday to extend the state’s Tuesday voter-registration deadline because of Hurricane Matthew, but Gov. Rick Scott told reporters later that day that he doesn’t intend to make changes, saying that "people have had time to register.”
Scott, whom Mother Jones reports heads a super PAC supporting Donald Trump, told residents earlier in Florida coastal towns to evacuate, warning that the hurricane could “kill people.”
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters Thursday that “the one thing that we are hoping and expecting is that officials in Florida will adapt deadlines to account for the storm.”
“The voter-registration deadline in Florida is October 11, and our hope would be that a little bit more time will be given for people who were expecting to be able to get registered before the election,” said Mook. “We certainly expect that the governor and local officials will make that possible.” Of course that didn’t happen.
Florida is, of course, a key battleground state, and one that determined the presidency in the 2000 election of George W. Bush against Al Gore.
According to Mother Jones, Trump is currently lagging Clinton in several key swing states, including Florida, with a Quinnipiac poll this week reporting that 46 percent of voters favor Clinton, to 41 percent for Trump.
Read more at CNN and Mother Jones.