The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted on Monday to give the counties hit hardest by Tropical Storm Helene broad authority to change their election plans to respond to the storm’s disruption.

The resolution, approved in a unanimous vote by the bipartisan board, allows counties to change their early voting and Election Day polling sites, gives them greater flexibility in appointing poll workers and gives voters in the affected counties more options to receive and deliver absentee ballots.

“We will continue to make voting accessible to voters,” said Stacy “Four” Eggers, a Republican board member. “Whether we need four-wheelers, horses or helicopters, this disaster highlights the need for consistency in our work and making sure that we get to the locations that the voters expect us to be.”

All county board of election offices are now open for business, after 14 closed last week in Helene’s wake. However, many election officials in Western North Carolina are still without power or water in their homes and several previously designated polling sites will now be unusable due to damage, inaccessibility and staffing issues.

“Our struggles are not over,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the board, said. “That is why we need the board to take action to give the flexibility necessary to carry out these elections and to be of the best service to the voters that we can be.”

Brinson Bell emphasized that disruptions from Helene’s aftermath will not affect the state’s election schedule, and early voting will begin on Oct. 17 in all 100 counties, as planned.

The counties included in Monday’s resolution are Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey.

Election officials in those areas will now be able to change voting sites to account for any sites that were destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable. Any changes will have to be approved by a bipartisan majority vote of the county’s board of elections.

County election boards are currently structured to have three Democrats and two Republicans, but any change to polling sites would need approval from members of both parties.

“This requires that a change is not going to be a Republican change or a Democrat change and that it’s required to meet the needs of the voters and the administration of our elections,” Eggers said.

There are 40 early voting sites among the 13 counties included in the resolution. State officials are uncertain how many of those will need to be replaced, though Brinson Bell noted that even if some buildings are unusable, officials may be able to erect temporary voting facilities in the parking lots of those sites.

To address potential issues with staffing, Monday’s resolution will allow affected counties to bring in poll workers from other areas across the state and reassign existing workers to new locations.

The resolution also allows for more flexibility with absentee voting. Voters within the affected counties will be able to request an absentee ballot in person at their county board of elections office, including voters who already requested a ballot, but may have lost it in the storm.

Since many voters may have been displaced by Helene, the board also voted to allow affected voters to turn in their absentee ballots to any county board of elections office — not just the one in their home county. Voters will be able to deliver those by mail or in person up until 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5.

The resolution also expands the use of Multipartisan Assistance Teams. These groups traditionally assist voters in nursing homes or assisted living facilities with requesting and completing absentee ballots. Now, counties will be allowed to send those teams to disaster shelters where they can help displaced residents vote absentee.

Brinson Bell said the board may need to approve future changes to election administration in Western North Carolina as recovery efforts continue.

This story was originally published October 7, 2024, 1:01 PM.