Strong Early Voter Turnout Despite Hurricane Helene's Devastation in North Carolina

 

Early in-person voting has begun with high participation across North Carolina, a key battleground in the presidential election. This turnout remains strong even in areas heavily impacted by Hurricane Helene, which recently caused widespread destruction and loss of life, particularly in the state’s mountainous western region.

On Thursday, over 400 early voting sites opened as scheduled for the 17-day voting period, with only four of the 80 sites in the hardest-hit counties remaining closed. Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, praised election workers, emergency teams, and utility crews for their efforts to ensure voting continued despite the storm’s devastation.

“I know many North Carolinians have lost so much due to this storm, and their lives will never be the same,” Brinson Bell stated in Asheville, which suffered severe damage from record rainfall. “But one thing Helene did not take from them is their right to vote in this critical election.”

Hurricane Helene, which made landfall three weeks ago, decimated parts of Appalachia and resulted in at least 246 deaths, with over half of those occurring in North Carolina. The storm was the deadliest to strike the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and thousands in the western part of the state remain without power or clean water.

Despite these challenges, voters turned out in significant numbers. At Asheville’s South Buncombe Library, around 60 people, bundled against the cold, lined up before the polls opened. Joyce Rich, a 77-year-old resident, said that voting early felt even more important after the storm. “We decided to get it finished,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

In Polk County, another area impacted by the hurricane, early voters filled the parking lot of the county elections board office. In nearby Henderson County, officials closed lanes on a major highway to manage election traffic, with golf carts used to ferry voters from a parking lot to the voting site.

Michael Dirks, one of the voters in Henderson County, said voting after the storm felt like a significant step in returning to normal. “It’s an important milestone in getting back to normal, whatever that may look like,” he remarked.

As the state evaluates polling locations for election day, officials in the affected areas are confident the majority of sites will be open.