A judge extended Virginia's voter registration deadline until October 15 after a power outage caused 'tremendous harm'

• Virginia extended voter registration until midnight on October 15 after the online portal went offline on Tuesday.
• Virginia's voter registration system went down due to an accidentally cut fiber cable on October 13, the deadline to register to vote online.
• State officials announced on Tuesday morning that an accidentally cut fiber optic cable near the capital city of Richmond brought down several government networks, including the registration portal.
• Similarly in 2016, the state's registration portal malfunctioned and crashed the day before the online registration deadline, leading the state to extend the deadline to register to vote online.

A judge extended Virginia's voter registration until midnight on October 15 after a technical malfunction caused the voter registration portal to go offline on October 13, the deadline to register to vote.

On Tuesday, the commonwealth's set deadline to register to vote, Virginia's online voter registration system went down because of a cut fiber optic cable near the commonwealth's capital of Richmond.

"A fiber cut near Rt. 10 in Chester near the Commonwealth Enterprise Solutions Center (CESC) is impacting data circuits and virtual private network (VPN) connectivity for multiple Commonwealth agencies," Virginia's Information Technology Agency announced on Tuesday, around 9 a.m. ET. on Twitter.

The deadline to register to vote online, by mail, or in-person in Virginia was set to be Tuesday, October 13.

—Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) October 14, 2020

"This morning we were alerted by VITA that a fiber cut near the Commonwealth Enterprise Solutions Center was impacting data circuits and VPN connectivity for multiple agencies. This has affected the citizen portal along w/ registrar's offices," the Virginia Department of Elections tweeted shortly before 10 a.m on Tuesday, adding that "technicians are on site and working to repair; updates will be provided as work progresses."

After repairs to the cable on the scene, the system went back online in the afternoon at about 3:30 p.m., NBC News' Kevin Collier reported.

Early in-person voting in Virginia began almost a month ago on September 18. So far, over 1 million Virginians have already voted in-person or by mail, a level of voting that has reached nearly 27% of total 2016 presidential election turnout, according to the US Elections Project.

Civil and voting rights advocates expressed dismay over the incident.

"Election officials in Virginia have again failed the public," Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said in a Tuesday statement. "The state's online voter registration portal has crashed on the eve of the registration deadline, leaving thousands of eligible people in the dark."

In October 2016, Virginia's online voter registration system crashed and malfunctioned the day before the deadline, leading groups including the Lawyer's Committee to sue the state to extend the deadline to register.

"This error is particularly astounding given that this same problem occurred at virtually the same time in 2016," Clarke added. "We sued the state and secured an extension of the registration deadline allowing tens of thousands of voters the ability to register and vote. It is astonishing that Virginia has not learned from failures of the not-so-distant past."

Florida's online voter registration portal crashed and became unavailable to users earlier this month on the state's October 5 registration deadline due to an unprecedented surge of last-minute traffic to the site hours before online registration closed.

The Florida Secretary of State's office extended the online voter registration deadline to 7 p.m. on the following day, October 6.