North Carolina sees strong early voting, despite Helene obstacles

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (AP):

Turnout for early in-person voting started strong last Thursday in the presidential battleground of North Carolina, including in mountainous areas where Hurricane Helene destroyed property and upended lives but apparently did not dampen a fierce desire to participate in elections.

More than 400 early voting sites opened as scheduled for the 17-day period, including all but four of the 80 sites previously anticipated for the 25 western counties hardest hit by the storm, said State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell. She credited election workers – including volunteers impacted by the severe weather – emergency management officials and utility crews.

“I know that thousands of North Carolinians lost so much in this storm. Their lives will never be the same after this tragedy,” Brinson Bell told reporters in Asheville, the region’s population centre and a city devastated by the historic rainfall. “But one thing Helene did not take from western North Carolinians is the right to vote in this important election.”

Helene’s arrival in the Southeast decimated remote towns throughout Appalachia and killed at least 246 people, with a little over half of the storm-related deaths in North Carolina. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005.

Several dozen who died were from Buncombe County, where Asheville is located. Thousands in western North Carolina still lack power or clean running water.

But that didn’t stop many from voting. About 60 people – most bundled up in jackets, hats and gloves for the chilly weather – lined up to cast a ballot at the South Buncombe Library in Asheville before the polls even opened at 9 a.m.

Among them was 77-year-old Joyce Rich, who said Helene made early voting more urgent for her. Rich said while her house was largely spared by the storm, she and her husband still need to do some work on it. Meanwhile, family members who don’t have power or water access are coming over to take showers.

“We decided, let’s just get it finished,” Rich said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”