We are less than a month away from Election Day as the hard-hit residents in the western part of North Carolina and the northern part of Georgia recover from the ravages of Hurricane Helene. What should officials in those states, and possibly others, be doing to protect their affected citizens’ right to vote?
North Carolina alone has almost 7.7 million registered voters, and about one-fifth of them, over 1.5 million, live in areas devastated by the storm. More than 800,000 people voted in the 53 affected counties in Georgia in 2020, about one-sixth of the state’s votes.
By now, county election officials in those states should have already assessed the situation, surveying polling locations to determine which ones have been damaged or destroyed so they can arrange for alternative facilities on Nov. 5.
Early voting sites should be open in all of the counties hit by Helene to accommodate voters who have lost homes and power. Local radio and TV stations should regularly broadcast complete lists of the locations of new polling and early voting sites to ensure voters are notified of the changes and afforded opportunities to vote.
The U.S. Postal Service has suspended delivery in some parts of those states and has announced that “full recovery of service” in the areas affected by Helene “may stretch forward for some time.” Given that problem and the current physical conditions in Georgia and North Carolina, individuals who requested but never received their absentee ballots due to storm damage should be encouraged to vote early in person and not wait for replacement ballots to be delivered. Those people voting in person who were sent absentee ballots should be required to either turn in those ballots or certify they were lost in the storm.
Given the combination of problems with mail delivery and physical damage to facilities, North Carolina and Georgia should establish mobile voting sites to accommodate greater in-person voting. Those mobile sites should be located near relief locations where citizens are congregating, going for supplies, food, water, and other provisions.
While this is an emergency situation, the security of the election process cannot be neglected, particularly given the fact that the 2018 race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was overturned due to organized absentee ballot fraud.
Measures must be taken to ensure only eligible voters can vote. Because identification may have been lost during the storms, people should be allowed to vote using the identification they still have while also providing the last four digits of their Social Security number and executing affidavits of identity to help ensure the verification of identity and eligibility of the voters.
There should be bipartisan teams of election deputies organized and deployed to shelters and other emergency services facilities in those states to help locate registered voters and deliver ballots on-site. Such teams should comprise sworn deputies of the opposing political parties.
It is vital that strong chain-of-custody rules govern each of the emergency systems established to provide audit trails and confirm the integrity and accuracy of each special voting process used for this election emergency. That includes complete transparency and observation by bipartisan observer teams of all of the procedures being implemented.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Finally, state requirements that poll officials and observers must be residents of the counties where they work and live should be temporarily suspended to allow observers and poll officials from other counties in Georgia and North Carolina that were not affected by Helene to help fill vacant positions. But those positions should be filled in compliance with the requirement that poll officials be appointed from both major political parties to ensure parity to the greatest extent possible.
The voters of western North Carolina and north Georgia and their families have a tough road ahead of them, and residents of other states such as Florida may soon be in the same position. In the same way that so many other states and volunteers are sending help and assistance to the affected states, which is due to the generosity and compassion that is an inherent characteristic of Americans, government officials in North Carolina and Georgia need to provide their voters with the help and assistance needed to fully exercise their franchise.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
