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All Hurricane Helene-damaged counties will be ready to accept in-person voters when early voting starts statewide on Oct. 17.
Nearly all the early voting sites that elections officials in those western North Carolina counties had planned to open can still be used, state Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell told reporters Thursday. Of the 80 locations originally planned in those counties, 75 will open.
“This is absolutely outstanding that our county boards of elections have pulled this off in western North Carolina given the devastation and destruction left by Helene,” she said.
State elections officials talked to reporters the day after the General Assembly approved rules for voters from 25 Helene-damaged counties that will make it easier for displaced residents to vote and for local boards of election to relocate polling places.
The state elections office will receive a detailed survey from the 25 counties of the hundreds of Election Day polling places and work with state and federal emergency management officials to open as many of those as possible, Brinson Bell said.
On the state Board of Elections Voter Search page, voters can find their Election Day polling place, check their registration, and see their sample ballot. Early voting sites can be found here.
As the state House debated the hurricane relief bill Wednesday, Rep. Caleb Rudow, a Buncombe County Democrat, tried to get consideration of a measure to extend the voter registration deadline and allow a three-day grace period for absentee ballots from voters from the disaster counties.
Elections officials did not recommend asking for those changes.
Having a grace period for some voters and not others creates “a difficulty in messaging,” Brinson Bell said.
State elections staff didn’t recommend asking for a voter registration deadline extension because voters who miss Friday’s deadline will still be able to register during the early voting period, she said.