With Hurricane Matthew still fresh in our minds, we need to talk about our governor’s behavior regarding the hurricane.
Yes, it was perfectly rational for him to urge 1.5 million Florida residents to evacuate the eastern side of the state. At the time, Hurricane Matthew was a Category 4 hurricane, with winds upward of 140 mph. Quite simply, it was extremely responsible and necessarily cautious of him to urge those Floridians to seek shelter somewhere else. After all was said and done, Hurricane Matthew claimed the lives of 1,384 people. It was a protocol that many of us should be grateful he followed.
Florida’s voter-registration deadline was supposed to expire amid Hurricane Matthew. Like people in any other state, many Floridians register to vote at the last available moment. As a university, many of us students know what it’s like to wait for the last moment to do something.
Naturally, any rational governor would extend the registration deadline, thereby giving his or her constituents ample time to return to their homes after the hurricane, get their lives back together amid flooding and property damage and then register to vote in this pivotal upcoming election. But we don’t get that privilege, dear reader. Instead, Gov. Rick Scott felt perfectly content not giving his constituents more time to register, saying, “Everybody has had a lot of time to register.”
While some people may find that sound, it’s fundamentally bad logic. It’s akin to uttering “Well, because you don’t have anything interesting to say, you should be fine with us repealing the First Amendment.” The fact of the matter is that many Floridians who were planning to register on those dates became unable to do so because of an unpreventable natural disaster. To deny them the ability to vote because of that is a disgusting act.
Luckily, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker forced Scott to extend the deadline. In his rebuke, he wrote, “This case pits the fundamental right to vote against administrative convenience.” While we agree with this refutation, it highlights the wrong reason why Scott refused to extend the deadline in the first place: his own laziness. Although this is undeniable, we all know the real reason Scott was apprehensive to move the deadline back. He’s one of the few foolish Republicans left supporting Donald Trump, and Florida, a vital swing state in the presidential election, is more than likely going blue in November. Extending the deadline would allow those who don’t have a lot of extra time — because they’re busy doing other things like working multiple jobs and taking care of their children — to register to vote.
Obviously people were planning to register to vote on days when the hurricane was expected to hit. As students, I’m sure many of us had exams and assignments pushed back because of the weather instead of being expected to walk in hurricane weather to turn in our homework.
Thankfully, more than 108,000 Florida residents registered to vote during the extension alone. This is enough to change an election. In 2012, President Obama won Florida by 74,000 votes out of more than 8 million votes cast. Right now, Sen. Marco Rubio’s U.S. Senate seat, which is contested by Rep. Patrick Murphy, is a dead heat. Let’s dispel the fiction that Scott’s choice not to extend the deadline wasn’t political. Instead, stick it to him by voting our conscience Nov. 8.
