Republicans are fighting efforts to extend voter registration after Hurricane Helene.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Georgia Coalition For The People’s Agenda want the deadline extended by a week because of the devastation left by Helene. They have asked an Atlanta federal judge to grant the extension, but the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party are fiercely opposed to this and have asked to be named as defendants in a motion filed on Tuesday.
The September 26 hurricane killed more than 200 people in six states and was the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina, which left nearly 1,400 people dead in August 2005.
Donald Trump speaks to an audience as he visits Evans, Georgia, while it recovers from Hurricane Helene on October 4, 2024. Republicans are fighting efforts to extend voter registration in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
More than 48,000 Georgia homes remain without power, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday.
Georgia is a crucial swing state in the presidential election, with Republican Donald Trump having a slight edge over Democrat Kamala Harris, according to the latest opinion polls.
The GOP motion, which was filed by attorney William Bradley Carver Sr., says that the Republican Party has a history of fighting NAACP election challenges. Newsweek sought email comment from the NAACP on Thursday.
“For purposes of this limited motion, it suffices that when the Georgia NAACP has challenged Georgia’s election laws in this Court, the RNC and GAGOP [Georgia Republican Party] have successfully intervened.
“In fact, in recent challenges to Georgia’s election laws, this Court has always allowed political committees—including Movants—to intervene to protect their interests in the laws and rules governing Georgia’s elections,” it states.
“Movants are unaware of any ruling in the Northern District of Georgia denying any national political committee intervention in a case challenging Georgia’s election laws. For these reasons, Movants respectfully request that the Court grant the motion to intervene,” the motion adds.
“Movants’ experience in election litigation will aid the Court in reaching a reasoned decision on the motion. Movants reached out to the parties for their position on the motion, but have not heard back as of the time of filing,” it reads.
In its filing, the NAACP said that Hurricane Helene disproportionately affected Black voter registration, and the document includes demographic information on several Georgia counties with a Black majority.
Forbes reported on Monday that Trump “is on track to flip Georgia after losing to President Joe Biden there in 2020, but polls show a tight race in the state that shifted from red to purple during Trump’s tenure, propelled by diversification in Atlanta’s suburbs.”
The report said that “most reputable polls over the past month show Trump ahead in Georgia, including a Quinnipiac University poll that found him up by six points over Vice President Kamala Harris and a Cook Political Report survey that shows him up by two points, while a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll shows them tied.”
The 2024 election is shaping up to be one of the closest races in U.S. history. The latest polls often show Harris and Trump separated by points within the margin of error (which for most polls is at least three), both nationally and in several states.
Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight’s most recent average put Harris the vice president 2.6 percentage points ahead of her Republican rival nationally—48.5 to 45.9 percent.
The most-recent update to Nate Silver‘s election poll averages on the Silver Bulletin blog also saw Harris slightly ahead at 49.2 percent, and Trump at 46.2 percent.
