By Dallas Woodhouse

North Carolina voters in 25 western North Carolina counties, all of which were declared federal disaster areas because of Hurricane Helene, will have a plethora of new tools to ensure their ability to vote.  

But with communications hampered and citizens from the far west spread far and wide it is going to take a significant effort from elected officials, public policy non-profits, churches and community leaders to make sure citizens know their voting options. We need to make sure that those who have lost everything due to an unprecedented inland hurricane disaster do not also lose their voice in the 2024 elections, now just a month from concluding.

The Disaster Recovery Act of 2024 makes many emergency voting provisions for the 25 counties. 

The measures include a long list of provisions that allow for ease of in-person voting in the area, including replacement of storm-damaged voting locations, expanded early voting opportunities and setting up of remote voting centers in adjacent counties.   

The more difficult subset of people needing voting access are the many citizens who have lost homes, jobs, power or access to water and have left the area for some considerable amount of time.

Thankfully the General Assembly has also made provision to ease absentee voting by these citizens.

Easier to request absentee ballots

If you are displaced because of the flood, you can request an absentee ballot to be delivered to your new location. Visit securevotenc.com for more information, or visit the North Carolina Absentee Ballot Portal.

If you have already requested an absentee ballot and need it to be sent to a new location, contact your county board of elections to spoil your current ballot and reissue a ballot to your new location.

In a key change, voters (or their near relative) can now request and receive an absentee ballot in person at their local board of elections. Voters can request up until 5 p.m. the Monday before the election, Nov. 4. Voters can receive, mark, and return their ballot all at once at their local board of elections.

Easier to return absentee ballots

This year absentee ballots must be turned in/received by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. This is why it is recommended that voters put their marked ballot back in the mail no less than a week before the election.

However, people in disaster area have multiple new ways to return absentee ballots.

Every county in the flood zone now has an open and operable elections office.

Absentee ballot return options include  allowing voters registered in the affected counties to return ballots to any county board of elections, early voting site, or the State Board of Elections office up until 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.

The convenience of early and mail voting is now going to be a necessity for hundreds of thousands of voters in the 25 western counties considered major disaster areas. 

The 25 counties designated as disaster areas due to Hurricane Helene account for over 16 percent of the state’s registered voters. Nearly 1.3 million registered voters are in the impacted areas.

The counties are Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Clay, Cleveland, Gaston, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Lincoln, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga, Wilkes and Yancey.

If you want to help your fellow citizens in the flood area vote, please post on social media: Absentee and early voting information is available for all NC voters at www.securevotenc.com

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misstated absentee ballot return options for voters on Election Day Nov. 5.  On Election Day voters in the 25 disaster counties can return their absentee ballot to their local or any elections office in North Carolina until 7:30 pm.

Dallas Woodhouse is the N.C. executive director for American Majority and author of The Woodshed for Carolina Journal where this first appeared.