Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida work to secure early voting amid Hurricane Helene fallout

Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida are working quickly to ensure voters can still securely cast early ballots, despite the devastating storm impacts of Hurricane Helene that have in some cases left them without power, water and cell service.

Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida are working quickly to ensure voters can still securely cast early ballots, despite the devastating storm impacts of Hurricane Helene that have in some cases left them without power, water and cell service. Potential solutions in the affected counties of the three states, which could determine the White House, could include extra polling places, extending early voting and making it easier to drop off mail ballots. “We have no power. We have no water. Cell service is limited, so right now the concern is a delay in getting the absentee ballots mailed out, a delay in receiving the mail,” W. Travis Doss, Jr., the executive director of the Augusta-Richmond County Board of Elections in Georgia, told CNN. Doss said some of the county’s 43 polling locations could be “unable to be used.” “This damage extends far beyond flood damage,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. “There may be polling places inaccessible because of damaged roads. There may be polling places with trees that have fallen on them.” Mail service has been paused in a wide swath of zip codes in the three states, according to the US Postal Service, presenting fresh challenges to delivering and receiving mail-in ballots. “We’re working diligently with our partners at the USPS,” Travis Hart, president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, told CNN. “Some of their facilities were damaged too, some of them completely washed away.”