ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Early in-person voting was set to begin statewide Thursday in the presidential battleground of North Carolina, including in mountainous areas where thousands of potential voters still lack power and clean running water after Hurricane Helene’s epic flooding.
More than 400 locations in all 100 counties were expected to open Thursday morning for the 17-day early vote period, State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said this week. Only four of 80 sites in the 25 western counties hardest hit by the storm will not open. “We lost just a few — despite the extensive damage, loss of power, water, internet and phone service, and the washing out of roads throughout the region,” said Brinson Bell, who praised emergency management officials, utilities and election workers.
“It’s an effort all North Carolinians should be proud of.” Helene’s arrival three weeks ago in the Southeast 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 U.
S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. Early in-person voting, which continues through Nov.
2, is very popular in North Carolina. More than 3.6 million ballots — 65% of all cast ballots — were cast this way in the 2020 general election.
In the 2016 election, 62% of all cast ballots were cast during early in-person voting. Brinson Bell said she didn’t expect a decrease in the number of voters casting ball.