For decades, the North Fork Voting House has served as the official polling place for nearly 600 residents in the small mountain community of Crestonttslot, N.C. The tiny cinder block building was recently updated with a freshly painted white door, handmade curtains for the voting booths and a new metal roof.
But the voting house was one of several structures destroyed by the remnants of Hurricane Helene late last month, uprooted by the epic flooding and mudslides that swept through western North Carolina. By the time the floodwaters subsided, the new metal roof was wrapped around a tree in a precinct worker’s yard.
“You just think, ‘Really, something else?’” said Devon Houck, the director of the Ashe County Board of Elections. “There is already a lot of scrutiny, a lot of eyes watching North Carolina because of its swing state status, and now this.”
Thousands of weary residents across western North Carolina, many of whom still don’t have water or power, are now confronting a unique question for a battleground state: What will the last weeks of a divisive and exhausting election look like in such a devastated region?
The North Carolina State Board of Elections approved several emergency measures on Monday to ensure that voters in the 13 counties affected by the storm could still vote in the Nov. 5 election, including allowing local officials to designate alternative polling places.
But county elections officials say they face a formidable challenge over the next four weeks as they navigate an intense level of national attention, combined with a beleaguered voter base that may not want to vote anymore, or not know how to do it.
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