Early In-Person Voting Begins in Helene-Battered North Carolina

Roxanne Brooks mounts an American flag to a stack of cinder blocks outside her friend's destroyed mobile home (R) in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene flooding in Swannanoa, N.C., on Oct. 6, 2024. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Voters across the state of North Carolina will start heading to the polls on Oct. 17 as the state’s early voting period begins.

Citizens will have until 3 p.m. on Nov. 2 to cast their ballots early in person and avoid typical Election Day lines.

With the state still reeling from Hurricane Helene, the challenge is how the state will ensure that those affected can vote.

“The people of western North Carolina will vote,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said at an Oct. 15 press conference.

“Before the storm, 80 sites were planned, so we just lost a few, despite the extensive damage, loss of power, water, internet, and phone service, and the washing out of roads throughout the region,” she said.

Twenty-five North Carolina counties have been designated as disaster areas in the wake of Helene, a Category 4 storm that touched down in Florida on Sept. 26 and proceeded to devastate the Southeast with historic levels of flooding. At least 230 people were killed.

The hurricane hit western North Carolina’s mountainous region the hardest, in some cases washing away entire towns that were unprepared for the storm.

Bell advised that 76 voting sites will be open to the more than 1.2 million registered voters in those areas.

Bell added that the state expects to have at least one early voting site open in every county during the early voting period, with modified schedules in some areas.

Those modifications are just one of the election rule changes the state is allowing in the wake of Helene.

Other revisions approved earlier this month include allowing outreach teams in the 13 hardest-hit counties to visit disaster shelters to help residents cast their ballots. Changes also were made to some absentee voting rules.

As of Oct. 10, more than 47,000 absentee ballots had been mailed to voters in the affected counties; so far, fewer than 5,700 had been returned.

With nearly 19 Post Office locations in the state still closed due to damage from Helene, returning ballots by mail may not be an option for some.

Under the new rules, those in the designated disaster areas may pick up their absentee ballots at local election offices and return them to any county election office or early voting site. Affected voters also may vote absentee in-person at their local election office until 5 p.m. on Nov. 4.

All absentee ballots must be received by 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 5.

Bell noted that in-person early voting has been the most popular choice of North Carolina voters in recent general elections, “and we expect that will continue in 2024.”