Suit: Add to voters’ time to register

Voting rights advocates are suing New York over the state’s registration deadline of 25 days before the general election on Nov. 3 — and say it disenfranchises tens of thousands.

Lawyers asked a judge on Wednesday to order the state Board of Elections to scrap the cutoff registration date of Oct. 10 and allow New Yorkers to register up until 10 days before the election on Oct. 25.

“It is more urgent than ever that no New Yorker is needlessly barred from participating,” said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The election board didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press.

The NYCLU and the American Civil Liberties Union are asking for a preliminary injunction in the suit that they first filed two years ago.

Voting rights have taken on outsized importance amid the coronavirus pandemic with millions of Americans planning to vote via absentee ballots for the first time.

New York’s Democratic-led Legislature and voting rights groups are pushing for a raft of reforms to make it easier to vote in November and in the future.

Mayor De Blasio said he supports the group’s lawsuit and said it’s “crucial” that people can register up until Election Day.

“People have a right to vote, but there’s a problem in this state, a 25-day cutoff before the election,” the mayor said in a Wednesday press conference. “That makes no sense in the middle of a pandemic.”

The huge spike in mail-in voting in the state’s June 23 primary has fueled concerns that voters could be disenfranchised in New York under existing rules derided by voting rights groups as outdated. Nearly six weeks following New York’s primary, there are still election races yet to be called.

Voting rights advocates expect an unprecedented turnout in November as voters on both sides of the political divide have their say on President Trump’s controversial first term.