The North Carolina Board of Elections Monday voted unanimously to make casting a ballot easier for residents in the 13 western counties that were most devastated by flooding from Hurricane Helene.
Karen Brinson Bell, the board's executive director, said she plans to start early voting in all 100 counties as scheduled, on Oct. 17.
She said that all county elections offices in the Helene-impacted areas have now reopened. But she said there about 10 early voting sites in the disaster area that are unusable as of now. There are also early voting sites that are currently being used for emergency response, such as fire stations.
“We also plan to provide as much voting opportunity as we can, recognizing that we may need to take voting to the people,” she said.
County elections boards may need to change early voting sites and Election Day polling places. They also might need to change voting hours.
If that happens, a bipartisan vote of the county elections board will be required.
The biggest changes are for mail voting, which has already started.
Voters in the 13 counties can now drop off completed mail ballots at any Election Day polling place. In the rest of North Carolina, voters can only drop off mail ballots at county elections offices and early voting sites.
She said the state also plans to allow bipartisan assistance teams to help people in shelters request and fill out mail ballots. Those teams usually operate in assisted-living facilities.
Republican board member Stacy Eggers said the changes will help voters.
“If there’s a headline that comes out of this resolution, it should be that we will continue to make voting accessible to the voters and whether we need four-wheelers or helicopters,” he said. “This disaster highlights the need for consistency in our work and making sure we get to the locations voters expect us to be in.”
Brinson Bell said she is not seeking to reinstate the three-day grace period for mail ballots to be counted. The General Assembly has required that all mail ballots be received by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, unless they are overseas or military ballots.
There are nearly 39,000 outstanding mail ballots from the 25 counties that were part of the initial disaster declaration.
The 13 counties that have been most impacted by the storm are Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey.
In a news conference Monday, Brinson Bell was asked about misinformation in the wake of the storm.
“What a disgrace for anyone to try to provide misinformation or disinformation affecting their ability to vote," she said. "One of the things that has been said is that we are doing our actions in some sort of partisan manner, and I hope it is very clear that our state board acted in a nonpartisan manner, and that I, as executive director, act in a nonpartisan manner. Our commitment is to make sure every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot."
