ASHEVILLE – Residents in Western North Carolina headed to the polls Oct. 17 for the first day of in-person early voting, giving insight into how Tropical Storm Helene might affect voter turnout.
North Carolina, a battleground state that could decide the outcome of the presidential race, surpassed its first-day, early-voting record set in 2020 by more than 4,500 voters, according to preliminary data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
But across 13 WNC counties the state board identified as the most affected by Helene, turnout was significantly lower than 2020, according to an analysis conducted by Christopher Cooper, a professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University.
In 2020, when many voters opted to vote by mail because of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 30,000 people still voted in-person on the first day of early voting in those counties. Four years later, turnout was less than 25,000.
A lower priority
In Buncombe County, Helene killed 42, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The storm also destroyed countless homes and businesses.
Nearly three weeks later, only 6,480 voters showed up at the county’s 10 early voting polling locations to vote in-person on the first day of early voting. In 2020, 11,436 turned out on the first day, according to Cooper.
At an Oct. 17 press conference outside the Wesley Grant Southside Center in Asheville, Corinne Duncan, the county’s elections director, said that in the immediate days following Helene, staff came into the office to contact poll workers, send out absentee ballots and devise a plan for early voting.
“We are ensuring that voters have every opportunity to cast their ballot this election and that they do so securely,” Duncan said as a long line of voters waited to cast their ballots outside the early voting location behind her.
After the State Board approved an Oct. 7 resolution allowing election boards in affected counties to change their early voting plans, Buncombe reduced the number of its early voting polling locations to 10, down from 14, while expanding weekend hours.
Other affected counties like Avery, Ashe, Haywood and Yancey tallied slight increases in first-day numbers, but not enough to make up for the disparity in Buncombe, Watauga, and other counties that saw fewer voters than in 2020.
Cooper told the Citizen Times Oct. 16 that natural disasters typically result in lower voter turnout.
Helene will likely prove no exception, especially when it comes to early voting.
“No matter how dedicated a voter you are, if your house has been destroyed, voting is going to move down your list of priorities,” Cooper said.
Some people affected by Helene will not vote at all, he said, while others will vote by mail, and some will wait until Election Day.
Ashley Moraguez, a political science professor at UNC-Asheville, told the Citizen Times Oct. 16 that she expects to see higher numbers of mail-in votes because Helene, which wiped out roads and bridges across WNC, has limited voters’ poll access.
But there’s still a lot of uncertainty on what overall turnout may look like in WNC, she said, given some voters are facing much more difficult situations than others.
She also acknowledged what’s occurred in the aftermath of the storm may inspire people to vote.
“I think the storm and recovery shows us, even more so than usual, how important our elected officials are at the local, state and federal level,” Moraguez said. “That might motivate a lot of people to get to the polls.”
Helene, in many ways, is an unprecedented natural disaster in WNC, so voter turnout predictions are difficult to make.
And the 2020 election, held in the first year of the pandemic, isn’t necessarily a good comparison. While the pandemic changed voting patterns, specifically increasing mail-in voting, Cooper said, it affected everyone in much the same way. With Helene, the toll of devastation is much more complex and not equally distributed.
“We have pockets of true despair in the mountains, and we have pockets that are comparatively doing okay,” Cooper said. “I think it’s a different kind of disaster in that way.”
‘Sharper focus’
On Oct. 18, the second day of early voting, a long line of voters waited to cast ballots at the East Asheville Library off Tunnel Road.
After casting her ballot, Pat Murray, 79, told the Citizen Times being able to vote in this year’s election was incredibly important to her, despite how divisive the political climate has become in recent years.
“Now it’s like religion – you got to pick a side, and you stick with the people that stick with you,” she said. “It separates us.”
She compared the political polarization in the country to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“We went to bed, and everything was fine,” she said. “We got up, and all of a sudden, we all had a different identity.”
When asked by a Citizen Times reporter what side of the political spectrum she fell on, Murray said she was a Gemini, her astrological sign. Later she acknowledged she leaned more conservative, and some of her friendships suffered because of opposing political views.
While Helene has reunited communities and neighbors in the wake of tragedy, this year’s election likely won’t bring people together, especially in North Carolina, where the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is incredibly tight.
According to Cooper, “everybody wants to know whether Helene is going to change the outcome of the election in North Carolina.”
“It’s not a stretch to say that we might have a different person in the White House because of interruptions introduced by Helene,” he said, adding that the 13 WNC counties affected most by Helene favored Trump by about 10 percentage points in 2020.
“If turnout’s down across the board, then clearly that’s much worse news for Donald Trump, and that’s worse news for the Republican Party,” he said.
While there’s so much focus on the presidential race in North Carolina, and the effect Helene may have on its outcome, the storm may show voters just how important down ballot races may be, given how visible the response has been from state and local elected officials, Moraguez said.
“In some ways, the recovery efforts from Helene might bring those races into sharper focus for a lot of voters,” she said.
But for some voters, like Murray, this election, in the wake of Helene, isn’t just about who ends up in the White House, the governor’s mansion or on city council. After Helene, it’s about something much deeper and more important in Murray’s view.
“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to live,” Murray said. “But I want to live long enough, so my daughter and grandchildren have hope. You take away hope, you don’t have anything. We’re living off hope right now.”
More: Henderson County early voting draws steady crowd after devastation of Helene
More: WNC election boards harness magic of voting to overcome voting obstacles after Helene
Jacob Biba is the county watchdog reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Reach him at jbiba@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Will Helene help Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in NC?
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