Elections after a national disaster

By Dr. Mary Anderson, Brodsky Chair in U.S. Constitutional Democracy and Culture, and professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations.

This article was originally published as a guest column in The Providence Journal, October 20, 2024.

For those living in Hurricane Helene’s and Hurricane Milton’s path of destruction, the clean-up will last for weeks and rebuilding will take years, yet there is an election in 12 days, and for these communities the challenges in meeting residents’ basic needs and administering an election are substantial. I went through Hurricane Charley in 2004 and here’s what Asheville, Tampa-St.Pete, and other hard-hit areas will face and how the rest of the country can support their citizens’ ability to vote.

Early voting for North Carolina, Georgia and Florida begins in just days. Polling precincts may not even exist anymore in some areas; buildings that served as polling locations may have been destroyed in the storms and some communities are cut off due to collapsed roads and bridges. Residents in these hard-hit areas are rightly focused on securing food, water and shelter, but Election Day 2024 will still arrive on November 5 – the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – as prescribed by law.

Election officials have a massive undertaking ahead. Disruptions to the carefully planned out process can be difficult but not impossible to manage after a natural disaster. In places where there is outright devastation to communities, where homes, schools and businesses are leveled to the ground – such as I witnessed with Hurricane Charley in Punta Gorda, Florida – the burden on election officials to carry out their duties is extremely challenging. Those who serve as election leaders in these hard-hit areas, along with their staff and volunteers, are some of America’s greatest patriots. They leave personal responsibilities behind to focus on carrying out their charge to uphold free and fair elections.

Hurricane devastation in Asheville, North Carolina. Photo by Bill McMannis.

Throughout North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee, where power outages are widespread, election officials need to get offices up and running as quickly as possible. They need to resume processing new registrations, send and receive mail ballots, check that voting equipment is not damaged, assess polling places for accessibility, consolidate precincts, find alternatives for residents to return early voting ballots, train and recruit poll workers and continue voter education.

Some groups will try to capitalize on this tragedy for their own benefit. They will prey on voters with false information about the election process and assert claims of fraud, often with limited evidence. Election offices will need to be vigilant in providing voters with accurate information about voting in their communities by working closely with local news outlets and law enforcement to help communicate any changes to the election process, like changes to polling locations, mail-in ballot procedures, and when ballots are due back to election offices, a recent change by the North Carolina General Assembly eliminated the 3-day grace period for returned ballots. Voters need to know these changes.

The road to the White House will likely go through North Carolina and Georgia. So, all of us, whether we were directly impacted by the storm or not, will be affected by the ability of these states to carry out their elections. It is critical that election officials have what they need to fulfill their duties and that voters in those states are not disenfranchised because of the hurricane-caused devastation. We should praise these public servants and election volunteers for their dedication on behalf of the American people and do everything we can to support them.

I hope that over the next 12 days Americans will show mercy for election workers around the country rather than disrespect; that we will applaud and admire rather than criticize and undermine them, that we will rise to the occasion of protecting our most sacred right, the right to vote for all citizens. This is the foundation of our democracy and election workers are some of our truest patriots protecting that precious right.