For nearly every election for the past 80 years, residents of North Fork, North Carolina — a small Appalachian community nestled in the mountainous northwest corner of the state — have gone to vote in a small cinder block shack.
No bigger than the size of a standard school bus, the North Fork Voting House had a window, a screen door and a metal roof. On cold election days, the building’s coal-burning stove would leave a hint of smoke in the air as election workers and nearby residents filed in and out of the nondescript building.
“We were so proud of how shabby it was,” an election worker told ABC News of the community’s love for the simple structure. “Cold, wet, and it was perfect for us.”
One of the last remaining dedicated polling places in North Carolina, the North Fork facility recently had its roof and door replaced ahead of the upcoming election, and nearby Patricia Beaver made curtains to separate the polling booths from donated red, white and blue fabric. Ashe County Election Director.
“It wasn’t a beautiful place,” Beaver said. “It was one of those fun places you celebrate and love.”
But when it’s leftovers Hurricane Helena After unprecedented rainfall in the area, the North Fork New River swelled, and the water main washed away the building, carrying with it nearly a century of local history. The remains of the ashes are now scattered along the river bank, and the roof is on the land of a nearby property.
“It was absolutely disappointing,” said Mark Palkovic, a nearby resident who worked at the polling place. “It’s the end of an era, because that will never be rebuilt, and if it was, it wouldn’t be the same.”
An undated photo on the left shows the North Fork Voting House in Creston, NC before Hurricane Helene hit, and the photo on the right, taken by a local district employee, shows what remains of the structure after the storm.
Photos provided by the Ashe County Board of Elections
“Really mild condition”
What happened to the Ashe County polling house is not unique. After hurricanes In the three weeks Helene and Milton swept through parts of the South, polling places in the swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida were damaged, flooded, or completely swept away, leaving them stranded. election officials confused to relocate the polling stations and instill a sense of normalcy a few weeks before the election.
“Some sites have been damaged. Some are being used as shelters. Some are completely isolated,” said Aaron Troutman, an election specialist in Henderson County, North Carolina. “It’s a really fluid situation, and obviously everybody cuts things to make some of these decisions.”
The ongoing emergency response has also complicated election planning, with many polling stations occupied by emergency responders or buildings used as shelters. In some of the counties hardest hit by Helene in North Carolina, local officials have relocated most polling places due to storm damage and the hurricane response.
“There are some of them that don’t exist anymore,” said Mary Beth Tipton, director of elections in Yancey County, where two polling places were washed out by flooding and most of the rest were relocated.
Hillsborough County, Florida, one of the hardest-hit counties in the state, initially lost two polling places after Hurricane Helene, but officials believe more were affected by Hurricane Milton. Assessment of the 240 of the county The elections The day sites are not yet complete as many locations are still without power.
“One of them had five feet of water in it,” Hillsborough County elections official Craig Latimer told ABC News.
Local resident Patricia Bailey used fabric donated by the county’s director of elections to make polling booth curtains at the North Fork Polling Station, which was destroyed when Hurricane Helene swept through Creston, North Carolina.
Patricia Bailey
Despite the challenges of quickly adjusting election plans in the weeks leading up to Election Day, all election officials who spoke to ABC News for this story expressed confidence that the necessary changes will be made in time to ensure all votes are counted in the hardest-hit areas. due to recent natural disasters.
“We’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘There’s going to be a vote this year.’ We want to make sure that’s where we’re going to vote this year,” Avery County Deputy Elections Director Joseph Trivett told ABC News.
Despite election officials assuring displaced residents that storm damage will not affect access to the polls, disruptions are taking place in line with presidential polls. thin edges in key swing states, including North Carolina.
“It’s a situation where the margins matter, and I think it’s entirely possible that that could be a difference maker, at least in some races,” said Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western North Carolina University.
“Major infrastructure damage”
When early voting begins Thursday in North Carolina, voters will have access to 419 early voting sites, with only four early voting sites lost to Helene.
Buncombe County — within the hard-hit city of Asheville — was the only county in the state to close some early voting sites, with ten operating polling sites compared to the 14 originally planned. Two of the locations that are no longer operational are in fire stations used for emergency assistance, and two other polling places were cut due to staffing issues, according to Corinne Duncan, director of election services for Buncombe County.
“Our office has been preparing for the 2024 election for years, but we certainly didn’t expect this,” Duncan told ABC News.
Last week, the North Carolina State Council The elections adopted a series of measures to give election officials in the hardest-hit counties more flexibility to change their voting plans, including changing the locations, dates and times of early voting sites. Voters in the 25 counties most affected by the storm have the option to cast absentee ballots in any early voting statewide.
“Having nearly every early voting site open after such a devastating storm is an effort all North Carolinians should be proud of,” North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said Tuesday. “The people of Western North Carolina will vote.”
With early voting set to begin in Florida on Monday, state election officials told ABC News they are optimistic voters will be able to cast their ballots at the polls. Seven polling places in Pinellas County were unaffected by the two hurricanes, and 27 polling places in Hillsborough County will be open to voters, officials told ABC News.
“We actually lost one of the sites to the hurricane,” Latimer said. “But we’ve moved.”
In a letter sent to Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd of Florida on Tuesday, the Florida Association of Election Supervisors requested 11 changes for affected counties, including extending voting beyond Election Day and relocating or consolidating several polling locations.
“The cumulative impact of these storms has resulted in extensive infrastructure damage, power outages and the displacement of residents, including voters, and voters and election workers critical to the election process,” the two association officials wrote.
Georgia — which began early voting Tuesday — didn’t see much disruption in early voting due to Helene and Milton, and the state set a record for the first day of early voting Tuesday.
“As normal as we can”
While early voting in North Carolina will go ahead as planned for most voters in the state, officials are still evaluating dozens of polling places to determine if they will be operational by Election Day.
Yancey County election officials are trying to relocate ten of the county’s eleven polling places, while Avery County officials have reduced the number of polling places after Helen affected 14 of the county’s 19 polling places. Two inches of mud remain inside a polling place at the Avery County Senior Center after three feet of water entered the building during the storm, according to county officials.
Avery County now plans to operate eight fewer polling places than usual on Election Day, even though county officials have set up an additional polling place in a region of the county affected by flooding. For the relocated polling places, the county has located alternative sites that officials hope will be convenient for voters.
“Fortunately for us, all the polling places that we’ve had to move are right next to the precinct, so they don’t have very far to travel,” Trivett said.
In Buncombe County, election officials are still working to confirm that 14 of the state’s 80 polling places will be available on Election Day, and 464 of the 537 polling places are confirmed to be open on Election Day.
In addition to dealing with the destruction of the North Fork Polling Station, Ashe County had to relocate six of the county’s 17 polling places after two polling stations flooded and another collapsed on its foundation, according to Ashe County Board of Elections Director Devon Houck.
“We really fought hard to keep things as normal as possible,” said Robert Inman, director of elections for Haywood County, which relocated three polling places damaged by the storm.
In nearby Georgia, election officials have identified a total of three polling places in Richmond, Lowndes and Columbia counties that will need to be relocated due to the storm.
“As far as hurricane impacts go, we think it’s pretty strong,” said Gabriel Sterling, chief elections official for the Georgia Secretary of State.
