TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Florida elections officials have finished most of their work on voter registrations, they said Friday, ensuring that the Department of State meets a self-imposed deadline to clear the way for the first day of statewide early voting.
After a federal judge ordered a one-week extension in the voter-registration deadline following Hurricane Matthew, state and local employees have been working on the registrations of more than 100,000 voters.
By Friday morning, 106,706 voters had been registered, while 21,068 applications were still pending.
Of those, more than 19,000 had been sent to county supervisors of elections because the information on the applications was incomplete or needed to be corrected. A little less than 1,900 were being reviewed by state officials.
"We will be even ahead of our schedule," Maria Matthews, director of the Florida Division of Elections, told U.S. District Judge Mark Walker during a hearing Friday morning.
Walker held the telephone hearing to make sure that a slowdown in the number of applications being processed didn't mean there were problems.
Walker seemed satisfied with Matthews' answers, thanked elections officials for their work and didn't order any additional steps.
While early voting for the Nov. 8 elections is already underway in most counties, it is required to be held in all counties starting Saturday.
