Voter registration deadlines for three of the states hardest hit by Hurricane Helene—Florida, Tennessee, Georgia—have expired while South Carolina’s Oct. 6 voter registration deadline has been extended to Oct. 14, and North Carolina’s remains Oct. 11, although voters can register in-person during the Oct. 17–Nov. 2 early voting period.
There could be changes in the 25 disaster area counties in western North Carolina. The state Legislature convenes a special session Oct. 9 in Raleigh. Among possible adjustments is providing counties in some disaster areas permission and money to relocate polling sites, create new emergency polling places, and extend both the Oct. 11 registration deadline and the Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots to be received.
North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) spokesperson Patrick Gannon told reporters last week, and again on Oct. 7, that there were no major changes or accommodations approved for areas hit by Helene.
How election officials in North Carolina and Georgia in particular chose to make storm accommodations—if any—is of significant interest because both, each with 16 electoral votes, are among seven battleground states that pundits say will determine who sits in the Oval Office in 2025.
Georgia Doesn’t Need Extention: Secretary of State
During an Oct. 7 press conference in Atlanta, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said elections offices in the 53 counties that are declared disaster zones did not sustain serious structural or equipment damage, so there is no urgency in changing registration and mail-in deadlines.
“Good news,” Raffensperger said. “Absentee ballots are going out this week, as scheduled, and early voting will start next Tuesday, on Oct. 15.”
More than 40 advocacy groups wrote to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger last week, requesting that registration deadlines in the counties affected by Helene be extended by at least a week, as they were in South Carolina.
However, Raffensperger said there was no need for an extension because the physical infrastructure needed to conduct the election will be fully operational before the early in-person voting period begins next week.
Of roughly 2,400 Election Day polling locations across the state, only three—one each in disaster-declared Columbia, Lowndes, and Richmond counties—were certain to be relocated because of Helene-imposed damage, officials from the Georgia secretary of state office said during the press conference.
There are only “a handful” of U.S. Postal Service offices that remain closed in Helene’s wake, they said, calculating that those post offices generally processed about 700 mail-in ballots in the past few election cycles.
Officials are making sure voters know they can get ballots at another post office or arrange an alternative delivery method, they said.
“Every vote matters,” Raffensperger said, “because every voter matters.”
He praised the state’s response to the storm, which prioritized ensuring resources were available to accommodate the approaching election.
“Georgia’s Emergency Management Agency, linemen from Georgia Power and other utilities, all the state and local first responders, and legions of citizen volunteers and faith-based organizations are doing a great job at getting people fed, housed, and back on their feet,” Raffensperger said. “But this was a massive and deadly storm, and recovery is likely to take awhile. We applaud Gov. Kemp for prioritizing the response.”
North Carolina Lawmakers Could Make Changes
North Carolina could be another matter, and the Republicans who control the state’s Legislature may be more amenable to making accommodations because most of the 25 counties in the Blue Ridge valleys of Southern Appalachia are deep red, and many are still in the throes of emergency response.The state’s bipartisan SBE, after concluding an emergency meeting on Oct. 7, tweaked several rules in an adopted resolution. Among them is allowing voters to turn in absentee ballots on Election Day at any polling site operated by county elections boards.
Under the resolution, displaced voters can also turn in ballots to another county’s elections board. Normally, voters can turn absentee ballots in only to their county elections board or the state board on Election Day.
SBE Chair Alan Hirsch said the board’s only priority is to ensure “no one is denied the right to vote because of these logistical problems.”
Among those problems is making sure poll workers will be manning their posts on Election Day. Like with many in western North Carolina without phone service, power, and water, it is going to take some time before everyone is accounted for, officials said.
There isn’t much data analyzing how a hurricane could affect an election, much less two back-to-back in two critical battleground states.
In an executive order, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made some changes in Florida’s 13 Helene disaster counties, including changes to early voting sites. State officials are ensuring voters in those areas are aware.
Decisions by New Jersey officials in 2012 to keep voting accessible to victims of Hurricane Sandy proved more controversial.
