In North Carolina, a critical swing state that will help decide the 2024 presidential election, Hurricane Helene flooded polling places, shuttered election offices, disrupted mail-in ballot delivery, shut down communication systems and displaced millions of voters when it roared ashore on Sept. 27. Now, with the election just weeks away, officials are scrambling to make sure residents will still be able to have their voices heard.
"The destruction is unprecedented and this level of uncertainty this close to Election Day is daunting," Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina's board of elections, said at a press conference earlier this month.
Helene's worst impacts in North Carolina were concentrated in western areas of the state where Republican and unaffiliated voters make up a combined three-quarters of registered voters, according to analysis by Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College. Last week, the state's election board unanimously approved a slate of emergency measures that will allow officials in the 13 most-affected counties to modify times and locations for early voting sites, loosen restrictions on absentee ballots and give them more freedom to recruit poll workers.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley issued a press release applauding the move by the board of elections.
“North Carolinians who suffered the onslaught of Hurricane Helene cannot also be deprived of their right to vote,” Whatley said in the release, but with roads destroyed across a vast area, electricity still out in some counties and thousands of residents now living elsewhere, it remains to be seen how many North Carolina voters will be able to take advantage of expanded early voting opportunities.
'The impact is huge'
In Georgia, which was also hit hard by Helene, election officials have expressed confidence that the election will go forward without major issues. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger reported shortly after the storm that election offices across the state had been "spared from substantial, long term damage." More recently, he told local news media that all of Georgia's 159 counties were "up and running" for the start of early voting. On Tuesday, the state set a new record for the most votes cast on the first day of early voting, according to Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for Raffensberger's office.
But voting rights groups say the states aren’t doing enough to ensure that people affected by the storms are able to vote.
“Anytime you change the rules, it's tough to get that message out there,” Ceridwen Cherry, legal director of the voting rights organization VoteRiders, told Yahoo News. “And especially if you're someone who's just been impacted by something like a hurricane, when voting may already be not necessarily top of mind, the impact is huge.”
One of the biggest fights has been over voter registration deadlines. North Carolina allows same-day registration for in-person early voting. But registration deadlines in Florida and Georgia have already passed and officials have declined requests to reopen registration windows in light of the storms.
"People can register today," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Oct. 8, the last day to register to vote in his state. "There's nothing inhibiting you registering today."
Lawsuits
Lawsuits that seek to force officials to temporarily reopen registration have been filed in a handful of states. A court ordered South Carolina to extend its voter registration deadline by 10 days. But similar suits were rejected in Georgia and Florida.
"Florida residents should not have to juggle fleeing for their lives and protecting their property with fulfilling their civic duties," the co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Florida wrote after their effort to reopen registration failed.
In rejecting the suit in Georgia, U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross argued that the groups had failed to prove that the storms had materially impacted anyone’s opportunity to vote. “I don't think we had even one voter who had been harmed or would likely be harmed by failure to register to vote,” she said.
Impact
This isn't the first time that a natural disaster has struck shortly before Election Day. Past examples suggest that the disruptions don't swing elections in a major way, but can have a small impact that could prove important in extremely close races. One study found that Hurricane Michael, which struck Florida in October 2018, reduced turnout in the Florida Panhandle by 13,000 votes. In 2020, President Biden won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes.
Former President Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed that the Biden administration has neglected the same Republican-leaning areas hit by the storms where early voting access has been extended. It remains to be seen whether the rampant misinformation about the federal emergency response might turn voters against Vice President Kamala Harris, or whether Trump himself might pay a price for it.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Bell said she’s “proud” of the work being done throughout her state to provide residents with the opportunity to cast their ballots.
“The people of western North Carolina will vote,” she said.