North Carolina is seeing strong early voting rates despite the obstacles created by Helene

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Turnout for early in-person voting started strong Thursday in the presidential election battleground of North Carolina, including in the mountainous regions where Hurricane Helene destroyed property and upended lives, but apparently did not dampen the strong desire to participate in elections.

More than 400 early voting polling locations opened as planned over the 17-day period, including all but four of the 80 previously expected locations for the 25 western counties hit hardest by the storm, said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. She praised poll workers — including volunteers affected by the storms — emergency management officials and utility teams.

“I know that thousands of North Carolinians lost so much in this storm. Their lives will never be the same after this tragedy,” Brinson Bell told reporters in Asheville, the region's population center and a city devastated by the historic rains. “But one thing Helene has not taken away from the people of Western North Carolina is the right to vote in this important election.”

Helene's arrival in the southeast decimated remote towns throughout Appalachia and killed at least 246 people, with just over half of all storm-related deaths occurring in North Carolina. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005.

Several dozen people who died came from Buncombe County, where Asheville is located. Thousands in western North Carolina still have no electricity or clean running water.

But that didn't stop many from voting. About 60 people — most bundled up in jackets, hats and gloves because of the cold weather — lined up at the South Buncombe Library in Asheville to cast their votes before the polls even opened at 9 a.m

Among them was 77-year-old Joyce Rich, who said Helene made early voting more urgent for her. Rich said that while her home was largely spared from the storm, she and her husband still need to do some work on it. Meanwhile, family members who don't have electricity or water come over to shower.

“We decided to just finish it,” Rich said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

In Polk County, an area along the South Carolina border that was also affected by Helene, the county board of elections parking lot was so full of early voters that a poll worker was forced to direct traffic. To get to the site, some people parked blocks away and walked along sidewalks still covered in small branches and other debris from the storm.

Voter Joanne Hemmingway, who spent 10 days without power at her home near Tryon, had always planned to vote early and was grateful that election officials were able to pull it off after Helene's strike.

“You don’t have it? “It never occurred to me,” Hemmingway said.

In neighboring Henderson County, officials closed lanes on a major road to direct campaign traffic and golf carts ferried voters from an auto parts store parking lot to the county's only polling place.

There, voter Michael Dirks said he was looking forward to voting for Helene and expected it to be an important milestone on the road to “a return to normality, whatever that may be.”

In Wake County, home to the capital Raleigh, several polling locations reported wait times of at least an hour late Thursday afternoon.

Brinson Bell said Thursday's sunny weather likely contributed to the “outstanding” turnout statewide. He suggested the state could break a record for early voting on the first day of voting in all 100 counties.

Early in-person voting lasts until November 2nd. More than 3.6 million ballots – 65% of all ballots – were cast during early voting in the 2020 general election. In the 2016 election, 62% of all ballots were cast through in-person early voting.

Officials in the 25 counties affected by the storm were still evaluating polling locations on Election Day, with the “vast majority” expected to be available to voters, Brinson Bell said. So far, officials have requested tents for about a dozen sites, she added.

Traditional mail-in voting in North Carolina began a few weeks ago. According to election officials, more than 67,000 completed ballots have been cast so far. People displaced by Helene are allowed to drop off their mail-in ballots at any early voting location in the state.

The importance of early voting was not overlooked in the presidential campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz campaigned in the state, including at an event in Durham with former President Bill Clinton. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and others joined the “Team Trump Bus Tour” as it resumed Thursday in Rutherford County, one of the hardest-hit areas.

The North Carolina vote also includes races for governor, attorney general and several other statewide positions. All seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and General Assembly are also up for re-election.

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Collins reported from Columbus and Hendersonville, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta; and Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.