How to judge election-related disaster responses

Five questions to ask after Milton and Helene

Less than a month before the 2024 election, at least five states are reeling from two historic hurricanes. Hundreds of people are dead and many areas are still without water, electricity, or other necessities. In North Carolina, approximately 17% of voters live in counties currently under a disaster declaration from Hurricane Helene. 

In Florida, the governor has declared a state of emergency in 51 counties due to destruction from Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Recovery efforts are impeded by continued flood warnings and fuel shortages.  

With exactly three weeks until November 5th, it’s normal to feel some uncertainty about what the next steps look like: What happens to the millions of voters impacted by these storms? Will they still be able to participate in the election? 

The short answer: yes. State election emergency laws exist to ensure that the affected voters can still participate in the election. Our election systems are designed to respond to emergencies like this. 

The longer answer: Yes, and state election emergency laws differ in the types of authority they grant and to whom it is granted. For example, in North Carolina the bipartisan State Board has broad authority to respond to emergencies (and did so early last week), but must operate within statutory and regulatory limitations. The North Carolina General Assembly also met in a special session this past week to pass a relief bill. In Florida, the governor “may issue executive orders, proclamations, and rules” that have the force and effect of law and delegate authority to the secretary of state. Decisions about how to wield this authority are being weighed right now by state and county officials across the Southeast. 

All of this can be confusing and overwhelming. In order to assess how decision makers are responding, ask these five questions: 

Are decision makers putting partisanship aside and focusing on ballot access for all voters?

The most important thing, up front: Ensuring voter access after a disaster requires suspending any partisan considerations. Full stop. By this I mean that basing decisions around how to use emergency powers on speculation about their partisan electoral impacts is unacceptable and contrary to promoting democratic participation.  

For elected officials, reporters, state and local officials, and civil society leaders, the first question should be “what needs to happen to ensure that all voters in all areas devastated by the storms have access to the ballot box?” 

So far, North Carolina has taken a bipartisan approach. For example, this past week the State Board of Elections and the General Assembly both passed emergency measures by a unanimous bipartisan vote. The General Assembly’s expansive bill extended the emergency measures to all North Carolina areas included in the president’s Federal Major Disaster Declaration.

Trying to guess at partisan implications of disaster response wouldn’t just violate the duties of the state and local officials making these determinations, it would also be a waste of time. It’s true that the swing-state counties hit by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Georgia leaned Republican in 2020 — and that historically Democratic areas such as Asheville and Savannah were also severely affected. It is impossible to know how many voters from which assumed red or blue areas have been displaced to other areas of the state or even out of state. It is critical that decision makers delegate flexibility and resources for elections in all affected areas.

After implementing emergency measures, it is just as important that those behind the implementation communicate consistently and truthfully to all voters about the effect of the new rules. This includes speaking up against mis- and disinformation claims that may have arisen from confusion in the aftermath of the storms. No matter what party they are registered with, these sorts of claims do a serious disservice to any voter and impede their ability to get to the polls to make their voice heard. 

Are local election officials being empowered with flexibility?

At a local level, lots of different things can go wrong in the aftermath of a disaster. As Florida State election law professor Michael Morley — perhaps the pre-eminent expert on these things — writes in the Election Law Blog, the list of challenges is extensive:

Most basically, election officials themselves are among Helene’s victims. States’ chief election officers, state boards of election, and other administrators must ensure that additional workers are recruited to staff election offices, early voting sites, and/or polling locations where county and local officials have been dislocated or injured and are unable to work. Election officials in many states have already begun the process of identifying alternate sites for in-person voting in jurisdictions where early voting and Election Day polling locations have been destroyed or rendered inaccessible. 

Additionally, election officials throughout the southeastern states must ensure voting machines, tabulators, printed ballots, and other voting equipment remain undamaged from the storm. In jurisdictions where logic and accuracy testing for electronic equipment has already been conducted, governors or election officials should exercise emergency authority—where it is available—to require such tests to be conducted again in any locations where floodwater, heavy wind, or other such hazards may have affected them. 

(Side note — Professor Morley’s whole post, available here, is excellent and worth reading in full to get a bigger picture of how election law works around disasters.)

Because the specific impacts can be so varied, emergency powers should create flexibility for local election officials to adapt. State laws vary widely in how much flexibility they allow, but the general principle of empowering local officials, of giving them leeway to respond, holds in all cases and means we might see officials using their authority in different ways. 

For example, the North Carolina State Board of Elections has used its broad authority to ensure the ballot remains accessible to North Carolina voters by passing a resolution crafted in coordination with county officials on the ground in western parts of the state. The resolution authorized county boards to modify early voting plans — set to begin this week on October 17 — and detailed options for county boards to consider regarding modification of Election Day voting sites. It also authorized local officials to recruit poll workers to serve in counties outside of where they are registered. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ executive order on September 29 used his authority under the general state emergency statute to similarly establish that local Supervisors of Elections may designate new early voting, Election Day, and drop box sites, along with options to consolidate Election Day polling locations or move them to a nearby precinct when necessary.

The bottom line: local officials know their communities’ needs best and therefore are best suited to deliver right-sized solutions. As we continue to hear coverage of how state officials make use of their emergency powers, we’ll be paying attention to how they center — or fail to center — local officials’ voices in their narrative. We hope to see that they are given both the authority and the resources they need to succeed.

Are emergency resources being made available? 

Flexibility only goes so far without the resources required to implement necessary changes. In addition to authorizing other measures, the North Carolina General Assembly just made five million dollars available to the State Board of Elections for technology, communications, temporary staff, and other supplies to enable voting.   

Hurricane Michael in 2018 serves as a cautionary tale exhibiting that it’s important to implement emergency measures holistically, including necessary funding, so as not to erect additional voting access barriers. After Michael devastated parts of Florida, then-Governor Rick Scott’s executive order granted county election supervisors the flexibility to designate early voting sites, utilize vote-by-mail ballots, and relocate or consolidate polling places to respond to their communities’ specific needs. However, the counties were not given additional funding to execute their new flexibility, meaning many had to choose to consolidate polling locations because they did not have the funding to maintain the planned number of locations. Reducing polling places created a barrier by requiring voters to travel farther to access them, and as this study showed, likely negatively affected turnout even more than the direct impact of the hurricane itself. 

In all cases, these additional resources should be allocated according to need (again, without considering partisan implications). 

Are decision makers relaxing restrictions on voter access requirements? 

Importantly, it’s not just election administrators who are impacted by these disasters. They impact individual voters too. Voters’ mail-in ballots may be disrupted by the loss of mail service, their ability to register to vote may be cut off by the loss of power or internet access, and their physical polling places may be rendered inoperable or even destroyed. 

Turnout in U.S. elections already tends to lag behind that of other democracies around the world, and in the aftermath of a natural disaster, it’s understandable why voting might not be a priority for those directly impacted. That’s why it’s so important that emergency responses give voters more flexibility too. 

Take absentee voting for example. 

Regular use of absentee voting varies greatly between states such as Georgia and North Carolina, with very low absentee voting rates, and Florida, where a much greater percentage of the state votes by mail. With so many homes destroyed and voters dislocated, expansion of access to absentee voting is one way to ensure voters’ continued access to the ballot. To the extent possible, maintaining or adding to the pre-emergency number of early voting days, hours, and polling sites — and verifying that all communities maintain access to those sites — also gives voters more flexibility. 

In states requiring identification to vote, it is necessary to consider that, along with the majority of their personal belongings, voters affected by the storms may have lost identifying documents that they were planning to use to vote. North Carolina law provides that “reasonable impediments” to providing voter ID will not prohibit a registered voter from casting a ballot — and directly specifies that voters who lost their ID due to natural disasters within 100 days of Election Day can vote using a provisional ballot without showing ID.  

Do emergency measures take into account certification deadlines?

Finally, as officials and voters in all impacted states adapt to these disasters, the big thing that can’t always be flexible is the timing. Presidential elections have a certain timeline that needs to be maintained. That consideration is particularly important this year, with the recently enacted Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA). 

Read more about the ECRA here. 

That law requires that the executive of each state (usually the Governor unless otherwise specified by state law) certify their slate of presidential electors by December 11, 2024. Even short delays in the post-election canvass and certification processes could jeopardize states’ abilities to meet the ECRA deadline. Accordingly, any emergency measures should be aimed at ensuring that all eligible voters can vote while minimizing the risk of delays in the post-election process. Taking swift action in response to these storms by prioritizing the above mentioned considerations — putting aside partisanship, empowering local election officials, unlocking emergency resources, and relaxing restrictions on voter access — will help facilitate a more efficient and inclusive election process early and mitigate this risk.   

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Back to the initial question — will the millions of voters impacted by Helene and Milton be able to participate in the 2024 election? 

Yes, because emergency laws have provided state authorities the toolbox they need to make sure that every impacted voter has the opportunity to cast their ballot. What they choose to pull out of their toolboxes and how they wield those tools are the decisions we see unfolding across the Southeast now. We expect them to make responsible use of that power to ensure that our democracy stands, accessible and inclusive for all, in the wake of these storms.