Yesterday a cable malfunction led to the Virginia Department of Elections’ online portal being down, preventing people from registering to vote by the October 13th deadline. However, a ruling has led to an extension of the deadline to October 15th.

Judge John A. Gibney, Jr. in the Eastern District of Virginia has approved Attorney General Mark R. Herring’s agreement that extends the deadline for voter registration by two days, through 11:59 PM on October 15, because of a registration system outage that lasted several hours, preventing Virginians from registering to vote on the final day before the deadline. Under the terms of the consent decree, Attorney General Herring has said that the Commonwealth will “take all action necessary to extend the October 13, 2020 registration deadline until 11:59 pm on Thursday, October 15, 2020.” 

“Today’s agreement to extend the voter registration deadline is a big win for democracy. Any eligible Virginian who was not able to register to vote yesterday can now do so,” said Attorney General Herring. “I have made it a top priority over the last several months to protect Virginians’ right to vote by making it as easy, safe and secure as possible, and this agreement is no different. I will continue to fight to make sure that every eligible Virginian can vote in this crucial election and that their vote will count.” In the granted consent decree, Attorney General Herring agrees that the Commonwealth will:

• Take all action necessary to extend the October 13, 2020 registration deadline until 11:59 pm on Thursday, October 15, 2020
• Take all action necessary to provide notice to the public of the reopening and extension of this deadline
• Provide additional information to the public and to voters attempting to register of alternative methods by which individuals may register to vote, in the event of a system outage during the extension period

You can register to vote online here: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/