Early in-person voting began in North Carolina on Thursday, and the initial turnout was strong, according to reporting by ABC News.
The turnout was even strong in some of the mountainous regions of the state that were heavily impacted by Hurricane Helene, which destroyed entire communities in the western part of the state.
There were more than 400 sites that were opened on schedule for early in-person voting on Thursday, just as originally scheduled. This period will last 17 days.
Only four of the original 80 sites that were designated for early voting did not open in the 25 western counties that were hit hardest by the hurricane. That’s according to Karen Brinson Bell, who is the executive director of the State Board of Elections.
Speaking in Asheville, the population of the center that was devastated by the historic rainfall, Bell said it was the work of election workers, utility crews and officials with emergency management who are to thank for this happening.
As she said:
“I know that thousands of North Carolinians lost so much in this storm. Their lives will never be the same after this tragedy. But, one thing Helene did not take from western North Carolina is the right to vote in this important election.”
At least 246 people were killed by Hurricane Helene. It barreled through Appalachia towns, and more than half of the deaths happened in North Carolina.
Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina back in 2005.
Many of the people who died were from Buncombe County, which is where Asheville is located.
Thousands of people in the western part of the state still are without power and clean running water.
Still, roughly 60 people made the trek to cast their early ballot at Asheville’s South Buncombe Library to arrive before polls even opened Thursday morning at 9 a.m.
Joyce Rich, who is 77 years old, was one of those people. She said that the storm made early voting even more important for her this year.
There’s a lot of work that she and her husband still need to do on their home, she said, even though it was largely spared from major damage.
As she said about voting early on Thursday:
“We decided, let’s just get it finished. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Early in-person voting will be available in North Carolina through November 2. During the 2020 presidential election, 65% of all the ballots cast in the state, or more than 3.6 million, were cast this way.
That was just a pandemic-era thing, though, as 62% of all ballots cast during the 2016 election were done via early in-person voting.
Officials in all 25 North Carolina counties that were affected by the hurricane said they were still evaluating polling locations for Election Day, though the “vast majority” expect that they will be open and available as originally planned.
