Many roads across western North Carolina — like this one in southeastern Buncombe County, south of N.C. Highway 9 — remain impassable. (Photo: NCDOT)
How voting will proceed in western North Carolina counties is still an open question as the region grapples with washed out roads, postal services that are temporarily suspended, power outages, and spotty cell service.
“This level of uncertainty this close to election day is daunting,” state Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell told reporters Tuesday.
Karen Brinson Bell, Executive Director, NC State Board of Elections, address state lawmakers during a legislative hearing earlier this year. (Photo: Screengrab from NCGA video)
“We are taking this situation one step at a time,” she said. “This will be an ongoing process, now until Election Day and even after Election Day.”
Brinson Bell and state Board lawyer Paul Cox offered advice for voters and an outlook for possible future actions.
Absentee ballots:
Voters who were displaced by the storm can ask for absentee ballots to be sent to their new address, Cox said. If they’ve already requested an absentee ballot that can’t be delivered, they can contact their local board of elections and ask them to “spoil” their old ballot and send a new ballot to a new location.
Voting in person:
The state Board does not yet have an assessment of damaged or inaccessible voting locations in the disaster area. The first step is getting all the local elections offices open and operating, Brinson Bell said. As of Tuesday, a dozen county elections offices were closed.
Some offices are getting special emergency kits that will allow them to operate without internet service.
The state Board needs to know what polling sites are unusable before it can plan a response. Brinson Bell noted that elections officials set up voting tents in Hyde County in 2019 after Hurricane Dorian.
Early voting starts Oct. 17.
The intent is to have early voting start on time in every county, but it’s too soon to know if that can happen, Brinson Bell said.
The availability of counties’ voting facilities is the outstanding question.
“We’ll be working with them to determine if they can open all the sites that they had planned to,” she said. “If we need to help them relocating the facilities that might change the circumstances. It’s really just too soon to know, but is our intent to open early voting in all 100 counties on Oct. 17.”
Legislative action:
Legislators are scheduled to come back to work next week.
The state Board doesn’t yet have a list of requests for the legislature, Brinson Bell said.
The Board may ask for money to help cash-strapped local offices pay for ballot printing, she said. Elections officials are talking about the best ways to help voters.
Under a 2023 law, the legislature ended the three-day grace period for returned absentee ballots to count toward total returns. Questioned about asking the legislature to restore the grace period, Brinson Bell said that may not be the best option.
Another possibility is asking the legislature to allow voters in disaster areas to use a Web-based portal, as voters serving in the military and citizens living overseas do.
“This may be one of the things we need to discuss with the legislature,” she said.