North Carolina Voting in the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene: The Impact of Natural Disasters on Election Administration
November 5, 2024
By: Sarah Catherine Woodruff
The impact of Hurricane Helene is still being felt in North Carolina, with the historic storm leaving almost 100 dead and approximately $53.6 billion in damages across the state. The damages are concentrated in the state’s western region, where Helene destroyed property, damaged roads, caused significant and lasting disruption to essential utility services, and left dozens of polling places unusable. The inability to use these locations, the displacement of many citizens, and the difficulty of mobilizing people amid the demolished areas raise the question of what actions North Carolina can take to help mitigate the storm’s impact on voters and their ability to cast their ballots.
In a 5-0 vote of Democrats and Republicans, the State Board passed a resolution, with extensive planning, to coordinate with county election officials, public safety and emergency management officials, and the U.S. Postal Service. These groups will concentrate their effort in “13 counties, where infrastructure, accessibility to voting sites, and postal services remain severely disrupted after Helene.” The resolution’s provisions allow county election boards to recruit additional poll workers and modify early voting and Election day voting sites. The measures are designed to help inform N.C. voters in temporary shelters or recovering areas about voting and enable them to cast their ballots. All of these efforts are authorized under N.C.G.S § 163-27.1. Emergency Powers, which provides, “The State Board, in an open meeting, may exercise emergency powers to conduct an election in a district where the normal schedule for the election is disrupted by…a natural disaster.”
The bi-partisan resolution directs efforts to assist voters with in-person and absentee voting. It permits county election boards to modify the days and hours of in-person voting and the days and hours of their approved early voting sites. In another measure, with the approval of the State Board, the executive director of county election boards can open a polling place in another county “provided that materials, tabulators, and voting processes are kept separate for each precinct’s voters at that location.” Further, if voters are unsure of their voting location or unable to get to their Election Day voting site precinct, then the county board of elections office may serve as a voting site for any voter in the county. Additionally, some county offices, other than the county board of elections office, may serve as early voting sites under these conditions. Regarding measures of absentee voting, voters may “drop off completed absentee ballots at Election Day polling places operated by the voters’ count board by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. Additionally, voters can request and receive an absentee ballot in-person at their county board of elections office until the day before the election—Nov. 4. Further, the board of elections for the affected counties shall “Accept the delivery of completed absentee ballots by mail, commercial delivery service, or delivery by a staff member of a county board or State Board if those ballots were delivered to another county board of elections or the State Board…”
Regarding election administration, county boards may appoint elected officials registered to vote in other counties and emergency Election Day assistants. Additionally, they may reassign poll workers to a different location to “ensure sufficient knowledge and expertise at each voting site.” Thus, across the board, the State has made efforts to expand voting locations, the capacity to receive and submit absentee ballots, and rearranged volunteers to assist the voters in the still struggling 13 counties of Western North Carolina in exercising their right to vote. Simultaneously, while empowering voters, these measures were crafted carefully to maintain election security and avoid detrimental effects on state election integrity when adjusting the electoral process. North Carolina’s efforts are well summarized by Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, who stated, “These measure were put in place to ensure the victims of Helene can vote in the upcoming election and provide election officials in the hardest hit areas the tools they need to conduct a secure election under extraordinarily difficult conditions.”