Ravaged by Hurricane Helene, North Carolina faces ‘daunting’ level of uncertainty ahead of election

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina election officials say they will do everything in their power to ensure that voters in the crucial presidential swing state will be able to cast their ballots despite the devastation of Hurricane Helene and the destruction of basic infrastructure only about a month before the November election.

Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the state’s election board, said Tuesday that 12 county election offices in the hard-hit western part of the state remain closed after the storm unleashed “unprecedented” damage. Absentee ballots, some of which already have been mailed to voters who requested them, also face obstacles, from U.S. Postal Service delays to road and residential damage that could render them undeliverable. The viability of early and Election Day voting sites remains unknown, she said.

She described the storm as causing a “daunting” level of uncertainty, with early in-person voting scheduled to start in just over two weeks on Oct. 17. Still, she said the state is prepared to help voters navigate the emergency.

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“We’ve battled through hurricanes and tropical storms and still held safe and secure elections, and we will do everything in our power to do so again,” Brinson Bell told reporters during a media call. “Mountain people are strong, and the election people who serve them are resilient and tough, too.”

Helene, which battered large swaths of the Southeast late last week with torrential rain and strong winds and massive storm surges along the Gulf Coast, caused devastation “beyond belief” in the popular mountain city of Asheville and other parts of western North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper said during a media briefing Tuesday.

“This disaster is unlike anything our state has ever experienced,” he said.

The level of destruction could have far-reaching implications beyond the immediate damage to the flooded communities, especially if it has any impact on voting. North Carolina is among seven swing states being hotly contested by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. Trump barely defeated Democrat Joe Biden in the state four years ago, winning by about 74,500 votes out of 5.5 million cast.

Asheville is the most populous city in the 25-county region under a disaster declaration and sits in the one county — Buncombe — where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, said the disaster area includes “significant blue dots in a very red sea,” making it difficult to predict how the storm might affect voter turnout and election results.

On Tuesday, emergency workers were still engaged in rescue efforts across the broad swath of the Southeastern U.S. that bore the brunt of the storm. Election officials in Florida, Tennessee and the presidential battleground of Georgia were assessing the damage and the potential impacts to mail balloting, early voting and Election Day operations.

WATCH: ‘People are on edge’: N.C. communities face crisis in aftermath of flooding

Georgia election workers have returned to work even as some offices face power outages, limited internet and infrastructure damage. Absentee ballots are scheduled to go out on Oct. 7 as planned, said Robert Sinners, communications director for Georgia’s secretary of state. In Tennessee, two county election offices had water damage and at least six polling locations in the northeastern part of the state have been damaged or are inaccessible, said Doug Kufner, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.

North Carolina officials said they are considering moving or combining voting locations if some are unusable or inaccessible.

More urgently, state officials are offering guidance and some special accommodations for absentee voters, who may not receive their ballots because of evacuations, suspended Postal Service operations or residential mailboxes swept away in the storm.

Paul Cox, general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said displaced voters can contact their county election office to request that their absentee ballot be spoiled and sent to a different location.

Those voters also have the option of waiting to cast a ballot in person, either during the early voting period of Oct. 17 to Nov. 2 or on Election Day, Nov. 5, Cox said. State law requires all voters to show voter ID, but those who are from a county under a disaster declaration and have lost their ID can fill out an exception form so they can cast a ballot.

WATCH: Trump makes false claims about the federal response to Hurricane Helene

Officials are still weighing whether to take further steps to accommodate voters, such as extending the absentee ballot deadline or allowing more people to cast ballots through an online portal already used by military, overseas and visually impaired voters, Brinson Bell said.

Fewer residents casting mail ballots or voting early will “put more stress on Election Day,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. He also worries about college students’ ability to vote if universities temporarily go online, as well as the disproportionate impact on lower-income voters who will be especially hard-hit by the storm.

Kelly Godfrey, who has lived in Asheville for over three years, is one of the few voters who returned their absentee ballot before the storm hit. In Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, nearly 9,990 voters had requested absentee ballots as of Tuesday — 85% of them Democrats or voters who are not affiliated with any party, according to Associated Press election research. Only about 170 had been returned.

Godfrey said she hopes rules and procedures will be adjusted to make it easier for voters who were displaced by the storm. But she also worries that any changes could lead to misinformation and false claims of voter fraud after the election.

“It’s going to be spun a lot of different ways,” she said.

For now, though, voting feels “so far out in the distance,” Godfrey said. “Right now, people are thinking food and water.”

It’s not just voters being affected. In Buncombe County, some election staffers were evacuated after their homes sustained extensive damage and the office’s staff has been unable to contact poll workers for training that normally would be taking place now, said Corinne Duncan, director of the county’s election services.

The full impact of the storm on election operations is not yet fully known, she said, and damage assessments on polling sites are continuing.

Brinson Bell said officials were not aware of any physical damage to election offices or the voting equipment or ballots stored inside them, but they are in close communication with tabulation machine vendors should any machines need to be repaired or replaced.

Some of the county boards whose offices remain closed or are dealing with outages have been given special emergency kits from the state, which were initially intended for use in case of a ransomware attack, she said. The kits are equipped with laptops, cellphones, Wi-Fi hotspots and other essentials to allow election operations to continue even without power, phone or internet service.

Swenson reported from New York and Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.