Presidential Election, 5 November 2024

Hurricane Helene, September 2024 

Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall on 26 September 2024 and caused over 200 deaths across six states: North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Tennessee (Sutton et al. 2024). Helene wiped out electricity poles and lines, leaving millions without power. On 3 October 2024, 850,000 homes were still without power (Almasy 2024) (Harty and Asplund 2024).  

Helene caused floods of about 4.5 metres in Florida, leading to damaged roads and infrastructure. Georgia saw houses being carried away and debris brought in by flash flooding. Tennessee and the Carolinas saw strong winds knocking down bridges and flattening towns (Harty and Asplund 2024). 

Federal support for those who survived Helene surpassed $210 million by early October 2024, with about 7,000 personnel deployed to help recovery efforts (FEMA 2024). 

Helene quickly became a powerful hurricane due to rapid intensification defined as when the maximum sustained winds increase by at least 56 kph in less than a day. The power of Helene and its intensification was driven by the record-hot temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico – which were caused by climate change (Gramling 2024a; Gramling 2024b). According to World Weather Attribution (2024), ‘Climate change was a key driver of catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Helene that devastated both coastal and inland communities’. 

Impact on the electoral process  

With little over a month until polling day and many states due to begin early voting on 16 October, destroyed infrastructure and fallout from Helene blocked access to some polling stations. In Tennessee, two county election offices and at least six polling stations were rendered inaccessible due to the floods from Helene (Jones n.d.). Further, postal services across all southeastern states were partially suspended, causing limited possibilities for mail-in ballots (Harty and Asplund 2024). 75 early voting sites, instead of the planned 80, are available for early voting in North Carolina. In the county of Buncombe, only 200 polling staff had confirmed their availability – a number which is usually 600 (Devine et al. 2024).  

Presidential campaigns responded to Helene, with Vice President Kamala Harris cancelling events in Las Vegas in order to meet with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) officials; Donald Trump visited the storm-hit city of Valdosta in Georgia and attacked President Joe Biden’s emergency response (Allison and Messerly 2024) . Trump further claimed that Harris prevented citizens from receiving aid from FEMA (Treisman 2024), while other influential politicians engaged in conspiracy theories about “weather being controlled” by malicious actors (Dunbar 2024). 

About 17 per cent of registered voters in North Carolina (about 1.3 million) were residents of the 25 counties declared disaster areas (Mueller 2024). As state law in North Carolina allows exceptions to voter ID requirements when a natural disaster occurs within 100 days of an election, the State Board of Elections passed a resolution to make returning absentee ballots more flexible in these counties. Voters could either fill out an “Exception Form” or apply for a free voter ID at a county board of elections office (NCSBE n.d.). The state legislature also passed an emergency funding package affording the electoral body USD $5 million to ensure a smooth election and hurricane recovery (Shutt 2024).  

Some North Carolina counties’ offices made plans to fill any gaps in poll workers, by assessing displacements (Mueller 2024). The State Board of Elections unanimously passed a measure allowing counties more flexibility for polling station hours; adding, removing or moving polling stations to other counties; and using county offices as early voting sites. A phone hotline was also opened for voters seeking information on how to vote (Kolenovsky and Despa 2024).  

Florida’s Division of Elections (within the Florida Department of State) advised local postal services and Supervisors of Elections to collaborate on mitigation plans. Supervisors of Elections in turn requested increased flexibility in ten counties (Harty and Asplund 2024). Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, granted the 13 hardest-hit counties flexibility regarding distribution of mail-in ballots and changing polling sites. Training requirements for poll workers was waivered in order to avoid a shortage of workers (Lieb and Farrington 2024). Early voting started on 21 October, with 22 polling locations in need of assessment beforehand, in addition to polling stations for election day itself. For example, Pasco County saw two polling centres lost to Helene (Devine et al. 2024).  

The location of the Cocke County Election Commission in Tennessee was moved following cleanup efforts, meaning that voters could cast their ballots at a new location (Harty and Asplund 2024). In Georgia, three polling stations were to be changed because of storm damage (Hutchinson and Charalambous 2024). 

South Carolina extended their voter registration deadline by eight days following Helene, as registration offices were closed for multiple days (Fields 2024). 

North Carolina saw a slight decrease in voter turnout. In 2020, the rate was 75.35 per cent and in 2024, 73.73 per cent. However, this election saw a record number of early votes recorded: 74 per cent of voters in North Carolina used this method, as compared with 65 per cent in 2020. Early voting was split evenly between the main parties with 1.46 million Democrat and 1.49 million Republican early votes counted. Many communities highly affected by Hurricane Helene saw higher turnout rates in comparison to the state average (Smith 2024).