Officials in storm-ravaged North Carolina plan elections: NPR

A helicopter landed on a farm near Black Mountain, North Carolina on Monday following Hurricane Helene.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina election officials said Tuesday that early voting will begin as planned on Oct. 17, including in counties devastated by flooding from Hurricane Helene.

But they don’t know how many early voting sites and polling places on Election Day in the swing state may be unusable due to the storm.

“There may be polling places affected by mudslides, there may be polling places that are inaccessible because of damaged roads, and there may be polling places where trees have fallen,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Choose.

North Carolina is still trying to assess the damage caused by Helene, which caused massive flooding in the state’s mountainous west.

Twelve district election offices were still closed Tuesday evening because of the storm. This means that election officials there cannot process new registrations and cannot send or receive mail-in ballots.

The state registration deadline is October 11th. However, eligible voters may register in person at early voting sites during the early voting period, October 17 through November 2.

Brinson Bell said she hopes to know by the end of the week whether polling places need to be moved. She said it’s possible the board could temporarily set up early voting sites in tents in parking lots — which it did after Hurricane Dorian hit eastern North Carolina in 2019.

She is confident that the election will go as planned.

“It is not possible for me or anyone else to go into this community and knock on doors when necessary without consideration,” she said.

Voting in a crucial turning point

North Carolina is considered one of seven swing states that could decide the presidential election. Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Harris have visited the state multiple times this year, and polls show it’s a misunderstanding.

It’s unclear how the storm will affect who votes.

One of the hardest-hit counties is Buncombe County, home to Asheville, a Democratic stronghold. But overall, most of the affected districts are conservative and gave Trump large advantages in the 2020 election.

Postal ballots have already been sent

North Carolinians have already started voting by mail. In general, small portions of the state’s voters cast their absentee ballots – in the 2022 election, only about 5% voted by mail.

The state election committee announced that around 250,000 postal ballots have already been sent for the 2024 election. It was not known how many of those ballots went to western North Carolina.

It’s possible that some of those ballots were washed away in the storm. Others are probably waiting in post offices and cannot be delivered. The postal service in the region is largely disrupted.

Brinson Bell said voters in North Carolina can track the status of their mail-in ballots online if they have internet access. They can request a new mail-in ballot and the state will invalidate the old one, or they can simply ignore the requested mail-in ballot and vote in person.

The state’s mail-in ballots were already delayed for more than two weeks after the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered the election board to reprint the ballots to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name from the presidential election. The ballots were mailed to voters who requested them in late September.

In addition to the delay in mailing mail-in ballots, there is also a narrower window for those ballots to be returned. The Republican-led General Assembly eliminated a three-day grace period for mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day. In order for ballots to be counted, they must arrive at county election boards by November 5th at 7:30 p.m. (Military ballots and foreign civilian ballots may arrive later.)

Brinson Bell said she doesn’t know whether she will ask state lawmakers to restore the three-day grace period.

She said it might make more sense to require more flexibility in how voters return mail-in ballots. Under current state law, voters can only drop off mail-in ballots at polling locations during early voting. She said she might seek permission to allow voters to drop off mail-in ballots at polling stations on Election Day.

“(We’re) looking at whether that’s more realistic and beneficial,” she said.

Voters in affected counties will have more flexibility when it comes to the state’s new voter identification requirements. According to the State Election Board: “One of the permitted exceptions is for voters who are unable to provide identification due to a natural disaster that occurred within 100 days of an election. … This means that voters in or from the 25 counties under a disaster declaration may make use of this exception to the photo ID requirement if they are unable to provide identification when voting due to the natural disaster.”