How Hurricane Helene could swing the election after storm battered two crucial swing states

Hurricane Helene, which ripped through the southeastern United States and claimed more than 185 lives, could also impact this year’s presidential election.

The hurricane was the first catastrophe in US history to hit two crucial swing states – North Carolina and Georgia – within just six weeks of the presidential election. according to Politico.

It devastated especially heavily Republican areas of the two states, giving Vice President Kamala Harris a potential lead over former President Donald Trump.

But it also hit some predominantly Democratic areas, such as Buncombe and Watauga counties in North Carolina.

As a result, the storm “could dramatically change who is in the electorate,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University.

“In a state like North Carolina, where margins matter, any small adjustment can be the adjustment that makes a difference,” he said, noting that North Carolina is “right at the intersection of red and blue.”

In 2020, Trump won 61 percent of the vote in North Carolina counties declared disaster areas after Hurricane Helene. He also won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster areas, Politico reports.

Polls now show Trump leading Harris in both North Carolina and Georgia by about one percentage point – well within the margin of error.

But the storm may have completely destroyed polling places, said W. Travis Doss Jr., the executive director of Georgia’s Augusta-Richmond County Board of Elections. to CNN: ‘We have no power. We have no water. Cell service is limited.”

And if a voter’s polling place has changed while they’re already struggling to rebuild their community, “then that might be the final straw that makes it too much for them to vote,” says Kevin Morris, a voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice. .

Officials in both North Carolina and Georgia now face crucial decisions about how to help people register to vote and get people to the polls after massive flooding tore up roads, closed towns and scattered residents.

Some of those decisions include whether to extend next week’s voter registration deadline, give voters more time to cast ballots and set up new polling stations in areas where flooding destroyed roads.

North Carolina state data obtained by Politico shows that nearly 40,000 absentee ballots have been sent to voters in 25 counties devastated by the storm, but fewer than 1,000 have been returned so far.

County elections offices will now assess damage to early voting sites next week to determine “what facilities will be unavailable,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections.

Next, the state Legislature will meet Wednesday on whether to provide counties with money for emergency polling places and extend both the Oct. 11 registration deadline and the Election Day deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.

In the meantime, Bell said, the board is focusing its efforts on reopening election offices “so that absentee ballots can be processed and voter registrations can be entered into the system.” This was reported by the Asheville Citizen Times.

Some counties will also receive emergency kits, which Bell called “election offices in a box,” so they can continue to operate despite phone and internet problems.

Bell also suggested the board could set up temporary voting sites in tents in parking lots, as the state did when Hurricane Dorian hit in 2019, and is considering emergency authorization to expand who can be a poll worker.

“Mountain people are strong and the election people who serve them are also resilient and strong,” Bell said. “Just go back to 2020, when we held an incredibly successful election with record turnout during the COVID pandemic.”

“We’ve also weathered hurricanes and tropical storms and still had safe elections. And we will do everything we can to do that again.”

In Georgia, where Monday is the last day to register to vote, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has now been informed promised ‘physical infrastructure’ will be present in early voting on October 15.

Any counties that need to “move early voting locations” must notify residents, he added.

“We need to let first responders do their jobs, but now that power has been restored and voting locations can be assessed, we will ensure that the upcoming elections are safe and convenient for all Georgia voters,” Raffensperger said.

States have previously extended deadlines for registering to vote and submitting absentee ballots, opening new polling places and giving displaced residents the option to vote by mail or fax — with mixed results.

A 2022 study that Morris conducted found that turnout fell below the historical average in the heavily Republican Florida Panhandle after Hurricane Michael devastated the area in October 2018.

Although Florida made it easier to vote absentee, many residents were confused by the state’s decision to close and consolidate polling places, leaving them unsure of where to go on Election Day.

When Hurricane Sandy hit the tri-state area a week before the 2012 presidential election, New Jersey’s Republican lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, ruled that anyone displaced by the storm could be designated an overseas voter, allowing them to vote by fax. release. e-mail.

The decision overwhelmed provincial governments, which were inundated with thousands of fax and email applications.

A Rutgers Law School Report from 2014 criticized Guadagno’s decision, saying remote voting caused “chaos” and made electronic voting vulnerable to hacking.

“While emergency measures were warranted, internet and email voting were not the solution,” the report concluded.

Yet another study found that Sandy made “little difference” in determining how New York City residents would vote, as many were highly motivated to re-elect former President Barack Obama.

When people view an election as “historic” or potentially having “long-lasting consequences” for their community, “they are willing to tolerate costs such as low temperatures, long lines, and even travel to distant polling places,” the researchers wrote.