N.C. Board of Elections extends absentee ballot deadline for western N.C.

On Monday, Oct. 7, the North Carolina State Board of Elections unanimously passed a resolution allowing accommodations for the 13 western North Carolina counties most impacted by Hurricane Helene. 

The resolution gives county election boards more leniency in implementing early voting, polling places, poll worker recruitment and assignment, office operations and absentee ballot processing by allowing counties to amend plans and procedures. 

Under the resolution, local election boards can make changes at their discretion through a bipartisan majority vote. 

Additionally, the NCSBE Executive Director will designate a North Carolina Division of Emergency Management liaison to each of the 13 affected counties — Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey Counties — to provide support in coordinating resources to conduct elections. 

Haywood County Elections Director Robert Inman said a particularly helpful detail of the resolution is that it allows local boards of elections to move early election day polling places without submitting a request to the NCSBE.

Inman said in some cases, the roads leading up to the original polling places are no longer there, leaving the polling places completely inaccessible. 

“The resolution was necessary to give us flexibility to be able to resolve some of these problems and deal with them without the formal approval by somebody who’s not seeing what I see, or the board sees, and what the public is dealing with right now,” Inman said. 

The resolution gives local boards the ability to modify their early voting schedule and hours, if they remain open for the same amount of time, Watauga County Board of Elections Chair Michael Behrent said. 

Yancey County Board of Elections Director Mary Beth Tipton said, while Yancey County will keep their original early voting hours, all 11 original polling places will shift to temporary precincts.

“We've got people who’ve lost homes, we've got lost lives, we've got people missing,” Tipton said. “There's just so much going on. I want to be able to be the one consistent thing that Yancey County has right now, because everything is just on a day-by-day basis. I want to offer one consistent thing. We were expected to vote early. We were expected to vote on November the fifth, and that's what we're going to do.”

Another piece of the resolution expands the capacity of Multipartisan Assistance Teams, which are groups appointed by county boards of elections to provide mail-in absentee voting assistance to voters living in facilities like hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. Under the resolution, these teams will receive and deliver absentee ballots to the county board of elections from any voter at disaster shelters, Behrent said. 

The resolution’s changes regarding absentee ballot processing have been tremendously helpful, Tipton said. 

The resolution moved the deadline for absentee ballots from Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, the day before election day. 

Tipton said it also allows county boards of elections to bring in election workers who are registered voters in other North Carolina counties. 

Yancey County has received an outpouring of support and offers to assist with the election from across the state, and have gotten calls from as far away as Pennsylvania with offers to help rebuild, Tipton said. 

While its infrastructure is slowly recovering, Haywood and other western N.C. counties are still facing numerous issues ahead of the election, such as polling places being underwater, road destruction, power outages and cell reception throughout the region, Inman said.

“It's a learning experience if nothing else,” Tipton said. “We're learning how to be survivors.”

The NCSBE will be working to inform voters about changes to election procedures through publicity, such as newspapers, social media, radios, and more, Behrent said. 

Buncombe County Elections Director Corinne Duncan said Buncombe County has a code red texting system they will use to release information, and they will update their website and social media, sending out press releases and making radio announcements.

“What's key is realizing to voters that the election is definitely going to continue: that while there will be challenges, we are having an election, and their vote does matter,” Behrent said.

Inman said he does not believe voter turnout will be impacted by the damages the hurricane caused, though he said he can’t be sure. 

“Knowing my neighbors the way I do, they're going to vote,” Inman said. “But I mean, it's just very impactful, and there's a lot of pain, and what it does to the electorate is something that is still to be determined.”

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