Residents in line for early voting at Pima County Recorders Eastside Office, 6920 E. Broadway Blvd., in Tucson, Ariz., on October 7, 2020. In-person early voting runs from Wednesday October 7 to Friday October 30 at select voting sites. Additional voting sites will open on Monday, October 26, according to the Pima County Recorders Office. For more information visit the Pima County Recorders website, recorder.pima.gov.

 Rebecca Sasnett / Arizona Daily Star

Arizonans will be given another 2½ weeks to sign up to vote in this election — unless Republicans win their appeal of the ruling.

U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan concluded late Monday that the pandemic and resulting restrictions on travel and gathering made it difficult for some groups to get more people to register to vote.

So he ruled that, at least for this year, the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline does not apply.

Instead, he directed the state’s 15 county recorders to accept all voter registration applications received by 5 p.m. Oct. 23.

Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs had opposed the last-minute change but said she will not appeal the decision.

“We need to give the voters clarity. We don’t want to prolong this,” said her aide Murphy Hebert.

However, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee already filed a notice of appeal. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has not set a hearing date.

The Republicans’ attorney, Kory Langhofer, contends that two advocacy groups, Mi Familia Vota and the Arizona Coalition for Change, waited too long —until Sept. 29 — to file suit seeking the later registration deadline for voters.

Supreme Court precedents, going back more than a decade, frown on making changes in the process so close to an election, Langhofer said.

He also argues the challengers have known for months that the pandemic restrictions had cut into their ability to sign up new voters and should not have delayed filing suit.

Those arguments could be undermined by Hobbs declining not to appeal, however, as she effectively said the state can live with the ruling and the extended registration deadline.

In the meantime, the registration process that was scheduled to end Monday night continues.

Even if a higher court ultimately overturned the extended registration deadline, it likely would order that any people who signed up in the interim should be allowed to vote.

During a court hearing Monday, Hobbs’ office argued that moving the registration deadline closer to the election would create problems. Early ballots go out Wednesday, Oct. 7.

The Oct. 5 deadline has been on the books for the last 30 years, said attorney Kara Karlson, representing Hobbs.

But Logan questioned whether the cutoff of 29 days before the election, one of the longest in the country, was “antiquated.”

“The court takes note that 31 other states have later voter deadlines than Arizona,” the judge said. In fact, Logan noted, some states allow people to register right up to Election Day.

The Republican committees’ attorney had no better luck with his arguments to Logan that it’s not as if face-to-face voter registration is the only way people can sign up to vote.

“Any individual possessing a computer, smartphone or postage stamp may register to vote in a matter of minutes without leaving her home or risking exposure to COVID-19 pathogens,” Langhofer said.

Logan was not impressed.

“This court acknowledges the efforts made by the secretary and the state to make voter registration easier,” he wrote.

“The court is also cognizant of the large population of Arizona that lacks access to the internet. Registering to vote has never been easier for some, though others are not so fortunate.”

Instead, the judge pointed to arguments by Mi Familia Vota and Arizona Coalition for Change that their efforts to register voters were successful — until March when COVID-19 and the governor’s orders restricting gatherings changed everything.

Specifically, Logan said the challengers were registering about 1,523 voters a week before the pandemic; that figure dropped to 282 a week during the restrictions.

Once those restrictions were lifted, the number of new registrations returned to pre-COVID levels, said Zoe Salzman, attorney for the two groups.

She told the judge that if he granted an extra three weeks — she had asked for an Oct. 27 cutoff — the challengers would be able to register another 25,000 voters.

All that, Logan said, means the additional burden on the state and the recorders of extending the registration deadline is outweighed by the effect on those who would be hurt by leaving it in place.

“The harm suffered is loss of possibly tens of thousands of voter registrations,” along with interfering with the constitutional rights of the challengers to organize voters, Logan said. “Plaintiffs’ interests outweigh those of the government.”

Logan also said there was a valid reason for Salzman and her clients to wait until Sept. 29 before filing suit. He said they needed the voter registration data from September — after the restrictions were lifted — to make their case that it is now easier than before to register people, and to provide the estimates of how many more they could sign up if given time.

Logan also was not buying the secretary of state’s argument that this change in the long-known deadline to register will cause confusion.

“Voters who are already registered will not need to bother with the new deadline,” he wrote. “And those voters that were unable to register before Oct. 5 now have extra time.”

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