North Carolina grapples with holding election in hurricane disaster zone

In a normal life Jon Council would be holding his last campaign fundraiser of the 2024 cycle, exhorting local small business owners in Watauga county to back his bid to become a county commissioner over a plate of spaghetti and garlic bread.

But in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, which left western North Carolina reeling from massive floods that swept away buildings, downed power lines, and left thousands of people stranded in their homes, life is anything but normal in this part of the Appalachians. Instead of wooing donors, the candidate is seeking winter feed for sheep.

“We’re talking hay bales, so we really need a truck,” he pleads down the phone.

With just over two weeks to go to election day, Council is wrestling with a problem that is common to anyone running for office in this rugged mountainous stretch of western North Carolina, from local candidates like him all the way up to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. How do you hold an election in a disaster zone?

Can you meaningfully talk to people about their electoral choices at a time when they are fighting for daily survival? How do you reach them, let alone engage them, when the internet is down, there is scant cellphone coverage, the roads are broken, power is still out, and mail boxes swept away?

“The voting landscape has totally changed,” Council said. “Polling places have been destroyed, people have been unable to leave their homes, absentee ballots and IDs are lost – given all that, talking to folk about why they should vote for me just feels wrong.”

Council, who is unaffiliated with any political party, was gearing up his campaign for the final stretch when Helene struck on 26 September. The flooding and landslides killed at least 115 people in North Carolina, with almost 100 still missing.

Jon Council, center, sits with other Down Home NC volunteers in their office on 15 October 2024. Photograph: Jesse Barber/The Guardian

Before Helene, Council and his team of volunteers were canvassing the 10,000 voters in his heavily rural – and largely Trump-supporting – district. They planned to step up advocacy for more affordable housing and, presciently, increased environmental protections to clean up local rivers and prevent flooding.

“We were just ramping up the push to November when the storm happened,” he said.

After Helene, campaigning was put on hold. The team immediately segued to disaster relief, helping rescue families trapped in their homes and hiking into remote areas to deliver food, water and critical medical supplies.

And now, as winter sets in with early snows already falling, he is scouring for sources of fresh hay to donate to farmers in danger of losing their animals after bale supplies of vital winter feed were destroyed in the floods.

“Since the storm, I really haven’t campaigned at all,” Council said. The result is visible in his office, which is now stacked with generators, canned vegetables and cat food where hand-made election placards and fliers were once stored.

But the election will still happen on 5 November, so that agonising question – how to communicate with voters in the midst of a disaster – is becoming more pressing.

“It’s a very difficult balance,” he said. “I’ve built a trust with people, including many Trump supporters who have told me I’ve got their support, and I don’t want to call that into question by being disingenuous.”

So he remains painstakingly careful to avoid any impression that his relief work is tied to people’s votes, while at the same time gradually segueing back to campaigning. In the daytime he continues disaster efforts, then after dark he and his campaign manager turn to the election until midnight.

Stocks of supplies in the Down Home office on 15 October 2024. Photograph: Jesse Barber/The Guardian

They are cranking their social media election posts back up, working out ways to encourage people to vote early or through absentee ballots, and debating whether to send out a mailer. They still feel odd about that.

“It doesn’t feel appropriate to the way we’ve wanted to run this campaign, sending election mail to people when they still don’t have a driveway,” he said.

The election board for Avery county, one of 25 North Carolina counties badly hit by Helene, sits inside the courthouse in Newland. Visitors to the building have to pass through a metal detector guarded by a uniformed officer who greets you with the refrain: “Are you for Trump? You better be, cause if he loses you’re gonna be speaking Chinese.”

In her office, the director of the board of elections, Sheila Ollis, is doing all she can to mitigate the fallout of the hurricane. Of the 19 designated polling stations in the county, 14 were seriously damaged.

Ollis is hoping that the 13,000 or so registered voters will not be discouraged from casting their ballots. She is proud of the county’s record of high voter turnout – in 2020, despite the pandemic, it was an impressive 76% – and wants to keep it that way.

New emergency voting arrangements have been put in place by the state board of elections covering the 13 most devastated counties. The new rules balance access to the polls with the safety of poll workers and voters.

Early voting days, which began on Thursdaywith all but four of the 80 sites open in the hurricane stricken area, have been boosted. In Avery county a second early polling station has been added in the heart of the worst impacted area.

But voting hours have been shortened, ending at 4.30pm to avoid people driving in the dark.

The state’s normally strict voter ID restrictions have been eased to allow those who have lost their identification documents in the storm to still cast a ballot, and they can do so in a precinct other than their own should they have been forced to move. Voters are also now allowed to come into the election board office to request or file an absentee ballot.

Down Home volunteers speak with a resident near the Virginia state line in Ashe County on 15 October 2024. Photograph: Jesse Barber/The Guardian

“One man brought in an absentee ballot yesterday and it looked like it had been floating in the river,” Ollis said. “So we spoiled it and issued him another.”

Election and disaster relief workers have had to deal with the swirl of misinformation, much of it targeted against the federal government and inspired by Trump and Elon Musk. Ollis has had to deal with a spate of calls from registered voters who have received printed notices telling them that they were not eligible to vote in Avery county – she has no idea where the fake declarations came from.

“Any little seeds of doubt get folks worried they may not be registered,” she said.

For the most part, she tries to block the noise out. Despite the extraordinary collision of arguably the most consequential presidential election in modern times and the worst natural disaster the area has ever seen, Ollis is determined to remain calm and do her job.

“You just can’t think about it. The same rules apply for any election, whether town mayor or US president. We just eat the elephant one bite at a time, following the protocol.”

With election day fast approaching, Jon Council can feel the energy around his county commissioner race building. “It’s warming back up,” he said.

He imagines that within a week he will return to direct canvassing, though he will take each day as it comes. “The landscape shifts daily, so our focus has to shift daily.”

Whatever happens on 5 November, he’s feeling philosophical about it. He’s hoping that the work he has done helping his community will speak for itself, without the need for political embellishment.

“Honestly, I think it’s a stronger form of canvassing for someone to say, ‘Oh, that’s the guy that brought that generator, and we didn’t even realize he was running for county commissioner.’”

But if they still don’t vote for him, that’s OK too.

“If I were to lose this election because I’m doing disaster relief, helping people get the things they need, I would wear that like a badge,” he said.