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Carolina Journal

WNC voters show determination with turnout surpassing the rest of the state

Yancey County Board of Elections and early voting site. Source: Carolina Journal

Theresa Opeka

Carolina Journal


Despite the challenges residents have faced after Hurricane Helene, voter turnout in the 13 western North Carolina counties hit the hardest has slightly exceeded that in the rest of the state at this point in the election cycle.


Data shows that 39.97% of the registered voters in the 13 counties have cast a vote compared to 39.92% in the rest of the state.


However, the counties fall behind the rest of the state with in-person voting by about 3%, making voting by mail their primary choice. They have approximately 5% more mail ballots sent to out-of-state addresses than the rest of the state.


Over 3 million votes have been cast so far in North Carolina in the Nov. 5 General Election.


All election boards in the affected counties are operating, which means if people can and want to vote, they can do so as they always have. And when early voting began on Oct. 17, election officials in the affected counties were operating 76 sites, only four fewer than initially planned.


Recent temporary changes to election law and regulations by the North Carolina General Assembly and North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) have helped. Measures included letting affected counties alter early voting times and places, and Election Day precinct locations can accept election workers and observers from outside the county.


Displaced voters can submit their mail ballot in person to any early voting or county board of elections site in the state.


In addition to those changes, the General Assembly provided $5 million to the NCSBE to assist election boards in the affected areas. That assistance included an emergency generator the NCSBE provided to the Hot Springs early voting site in Yancey County.


The strength, resiliency, and determination of the people of WNC, including election workers, is helping them not only recover from such devastating losses after Helene but also prompting them to exercise their civic duty to vote.


“The General Assembly and State Board of Elections acted decisively to ensure that voters in Western North Carolina would have the opportunity to vote without overly sacrificing election security,” said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation The turnout in the affected counties is a sight that the changes helped but the real determinant is the motivation of citizens there to vote.


Citizens like a couple from Beech Mountain, Avery County, who told the Daily Mail that they would “crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump.”


A Burnsville, Yancey County resident told CBS News that “nothing was going to stop him from voting,” adding that he was voter number 1,276 for early in-person voting. He also said that someone he knows whose house was completely destroyed also voted early in person.

Jackson said the election response to Helene was unprecedented because the disaster was unprecedented, so it’s not necessarily a template for future emergencies.


“For example, there were fewer changes to election law after Hurricane Florence in 2018 because a lesser response could have adequately helped voters.

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