Election officials in southern states are grappling with fallout from dual hurricanes
CNN
Powerful hurricanes that wreaked havoc on wide swaths of the southeast have election officials facing the dim reality that some ballots may be lost in the mail.
Powerful hurricanes that wreaked havoc on wide swaths of the southeast have election officials facing the dim reality that some ballots may be lost in the mail. While in many cases there are remedies to solve the problem, it’s part of the complicated preparations for the upcoming general election, especially in hard-hit North Carolina, a battleground state where communications and power remain spotty in some counties. Hurricane Helene, which hit the US late last month, caused hundreds of deaths across half a dozen states and upended carefully laid election plans as polling centers were crippled and regular communication channels were shattered. “I’ve got precincts that are completely gone, that are completely washed away,” said Mary Beth Tipton, the director of the board of elections in North Carolina’s Yancey County. “We’ve actually got a post office that’s washed away.” Tipton said the county of about 18,000 people had mailed out hundreds of absentee ballots just before the flooding began and that it’s possible that some of them have been lost. Yancey County went for Trump in 2020 by a 2-1 margin. County election officials in Florida, meanwhile, are facing a potential new challenge after Hurricane Milton made landfall on its western coast late Wednesday.
The first week of testimony in Brian Walshe’s murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, has come to an end. The jury heard from about two dozen witnesses called by the commonwealth in its case against Walshe as prosecutors work to prove he killed his wife, Ana Walshe, around New Year’s Day in 2023.
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