Increase in voter turnout in swing states affected by Hurricane Helene

It’s been just over a month since Hurricane Helene tore through the southeastern United States, claiming hundreds of lives and determining an estimate $53 billion in damages. Besides being a record storm itselfHelene was also the first hurricane in American history to hit two battleground states within weeks of a major election.

In North Carolina, one of seven swing states that could determine the outcome of this week’s presidential race, Helene’s destruction displaced thousands, caused hundreds of road closures and disrupted mail just weeks before early voting began in the state. There were over 20 post offices it still forwards the email from October 22.

The North Carolina Board of Elections quickly took action to ensure that people affected by the storm retain their right to vote, approval of a resolution to extend early voting deadlines and loosen some restrictions on absentee ballots, among other actions, in the 13 western counties hardest hit by Helene. Despite these measures, one question still loomed: Will the storm dampen voter turnout?

As early voting closes, data released by local officials on Helene’s path indicates that the enthusiasm of the voters did not decrease. Indeed, a reverse trend may be underway. North Carolina and Georgia, the other battleground state hit by Helene, reported record number of early votes: Voting attendance has passed 2012, 2016and, in North Carolina, 2020 — a pandemic election year in which many people voted early to avoid crowds.

The North Carolina Board of Elections announced that there is 4 million ballots cast in the state as of 2 p.m., Friday, November 1about 51 percent of all registered voters in North Carolina and the state’s largest year for early voting ever.

“It appears that even the counties in western North Carolina that were hardest hit by Hurricane Helene do not have much lower early voter turnout rates,” said Jowei Chen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. , which studies redistribution and political geography. “The advantages of mail-in and early voting may have mitigated the potentially negative effects of the hurricane on voters.”

Chen noted that while displaced voters can request a mail-in ballot sent to their new temporary residences, it is inevitable that some of these hurricane victims will fall through the cracks as they deal with the logistics and mental burden of recovery in case of disaster.

The high turnout in North Carolina and Georgia is a testament to the stakes in this election, widely regarded as one of the most important of the 21st century, and to the Republican Party. embracing early voting this cycle. But election officials’ response to Hurricane Helene also opened new avenues for affected and displaced voters to participate. Disaster researchers say the process of federal and state aid itself likely influences both how voters turn out and who they vote for.

In Avery County, North Carolina, Roaring Creek, Ingalls and Plumtree polling places that were damaged by the storm were consolidated into Riverside Elementary School. In the middle of the day Thursday, poll workers sat at lunch as teachers walked in and out of the school, picking up supplies to deliver to distressed areas around the county. Although the day was slow, workers said they had already seen 600 to 700 people vote that week — higher, they said, than in previous years.

A county over in Spruce Pine, the largest city in heavily Republican Mitchell County, about a dozen early voters stopped by the volunteer fire department to cast their ballots within an hour. The site, which is in the center of the city and surrounded by wide, well-paved roads and parking lots, remains easily accessible. One voter, who gave her name as Lauren, said it was easier to vote early than to wait until election day because she owned a campground that had been affected by flooding and had cleanup work to do.

Previous research has shown that a hurricane can it both suppresses and galvanizes voters. A politically involved person who had their home destroyed in a major disaster could depress the vote in favor of prioritizing other more pressing things, such as rebuilding their home.

On the other hand, voters who received federal aid or other relief from a storm may be more inclined to vote and, some studies show, vote for the party in office (the party responsible for delivering that recoil). Research also shows that people who did not receive sufficient government aid are similarly inclined to vote but for the challenger party.

James Robinson, a welder who cast his ballot Thursday at the Spruce Pine polling place, said he was a Trump voter before the hurricane and will be one after. Robinson suffered damage to his home from Helene. He did not lose everything, as some did, but the experience reaffirmed his convictions. “The government’s response here has been pathetic,” Robinson said, citing what he said was a slow response as he and his neighbors backed out of their own driveways.

30 miles away in Madison County, a predominantly Republican area not far from Asheville, Francine, a 67-year-old small business owner who asked that her name be withheld, has been a registered voter for 10 years . Her home was not badly damaged by Helene, but many of her neighbors’ homes and businesses, as well as her town’s infrastructure, were destroyed. “You go a few miles in any direction and it’s just terrible,” she said.

A few days before the storm hit, Francine woke up in the middle of the night with a gastrointestinal obstruction and spent eight days in the hospital recovering. When she was discharged, she came home and noticed that she hadn’t received her voter registration card in the mail, but her husband had. Over the past year, North Carolina removed nearly 750,000 registrants in an effort to weed out duplicates, deceased persons and other ineligible voters from its voter rolls. Francine wondered if she had been mistakenly counted among them. But he was still not well enough to get to the electoral office to resolve the matter. The day she was supposed to have her stitches removed, Hurricane Helene hit. Francine’s husband removed the stitches himself as the storm raged around them.

Two weeks ago, Francine was finally able to drive to the local elections office and prove to the officer that an error on her recently renewed driver’s license had caused her registration to be improperly expunged by the state. She cast her vote early last week for Kamala Harris and was surprised by how many people she saw voting early.

Francine’s main issues are women’s rights, separation of church and state, and US involvement in conflicts abroad. She wasn’t happy with either candidate, but said she couldn’t bear to vote for Trump. The former president’s response to the hurricane, which poured gasoline on the fire false rumors and conspiracy theories which appeared after the storm, further soured his candidacy. “Everybody’s pointing fingers at each other and it just gets really ugly,” she said. “Everybody is so excited that I think the turnout is going to be great.”

This article originally appeared in groats.

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