In less than a month, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton have caused record storm surge and damage in multiple southeastern states, including Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Now, will the storms force voters away from the polls in Florida and the rest of the South?
With a little more than a week to go until the November election, voting rights activists warn that the storms might render thousands unable to vote across Florida and the South if states don’t change their policies to help voters displaced from their homes. In a media briefing held over Zoom earlier this month, policy directors from Common Cause, a nonpartisan election protection nonprofit, shared resources for voters in impacted states.
“We know democracy is best when every eligible voter can cast a ballot, and we’re going to continue to work … to make that happen,” said Kelly DuFour, Common Cause’s Ohio voting and elections manager. Nonetheless, many voters in 2024 are running into unforeseen hurdles when it comes to registering and accessing in-person voting options.
Common Cause’s staffers in Florida, North Carolina and Texas expressed their frustration with lawmakers for not taking steps to reduce the barriers to voting for people displaced in the chaos of the storms wreaking havoc on the country this month, including widespread power outages, flash flooding and damage to homes and cars. Meanwhile, meteorologists reporting on the storm have faced death threats from conspiracy theorists claiming that the federal government is controlling the hurricanes.
According to Amy Keith, Florida executive director, Common Cause and other groups asked Governor Ron DeSantis to extend Florida’s Oct. 7 voter registration deadline in the wake of the hurricanes.
After he refused, Common Cause has been working to reach voters with resources like its guide “Voting After a Hurricane.”
Nonetheless, said Keith, voters displaced from their home counties need more flexible in-person and vote-by-mail options regardless of where they might be in the state. Keith said Florida voters currently have until Oct. 24 to request a vote-by-mail ballot, and should be able to call Florida’s voter registration office to have a ballot sent to a temporary address.
Responding to a question about voters’ needs in Florida, Keith explained that the state has resiliency plans for hard infrastructure, but “where we see the weakness is in accommodating individual voters in a disaster.”
Bob Philips, Common Cause’s executive director for North Carolina, recommended that Election Day voting sites be set up in adjacent counties to accommodate voters living close to significant storm damage. In North Carolina, roads are damaged and more than 1,000 people are currently without access to running water or electricity.
While early voting sites have also been damaged due to the hurricanes, elections officials in North Carolina have been working to keep them functional, and currently only four out of 80 early voting sites are inoperable.
Besides allowing people to vote in adjacent counties to their own, Philips recommended that legislation allow for poll workers from impacted counties to help out in other ones that might not have enough volunteers to ensure that all voters receive any accommodations they need to cast their ballots.
Meanwhile, the hurricanes aren’t the only challenge facing would-be voters. Right now, voters in states from Texas to Ohio are facing the additional threat of racist voter purges. In the wake of Donald Trump’s baseless comments about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, third-party groups are attempting to challenge voter registration lists with unfounded claims that non-citizen immigrants are voting illegally.
This “myth of non-citizen voting,” is equally a problem in Georgia, according to Common Cause’s senior director of voting and democracy Jay Young. Even though the Voter Registration Act prohibits systemic removals of names from voter lists less than 90 days before a federal election, conservative groups such as the Public Interest Legal Foundation are campaigning to have so-called non-citizens voters disenfranchised. When local officials refuse to make changes, these groups are turning to the courts.
According to Young, in just the last week, Common Cause has had to intervene in three court cases—chilling examples of individuals’ attempts to use litigation as a tool “to advance partisan and political narratives that are proving damaging to voters.”
Common Cause also sent notice letters to the state of Georgia regarding counties that may have violated voter registration laws with unlawful voter removals. “We’re doing what we can to stay on top of these issues,” Young said.
Last week, Common Cause and other groups also sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose about potential violations of the Voter Registration Act, including a requirement that people must complete an attestation form before dropping off a ballot for someone else at a drop box. According to DuFour, LaRose has not yet issued consistent guidelines for counties to follow.
Meanwhile, she cited the dangerous and inflammatory conditions surrounding Springfield and the rest of Ohio after Trump’s comments, explaining that Ohio’s boards of elections are under “intense pressure” this election season with numerous groups trying to push forward unfounded claims about non-citizen voting.
Common Cause Ohio has started a Letters to the Editor campaign to raise awareness and support the work that the election boards are doing in publications throughout the state.
Baseless allegations about non-citizen voting are a problem in Texas as well. According to Emily French, a voting rights attorney and Common Cause’s Texas democracy and representation policy director, Texas already has systems in place to ensure that voter registration lists are accurate, including a policy sending letters to people suspected to be ineligible voters and giving them 30 days to provide proof of citizenship.
Nonetheless, French said that Texas leaders “have a history of using bad data to attempt racist voter purges.” In the past, McLennan County and Galveston County have both received lists of names to investigate from former acting Secretary of State David Whitley, only to be told later that most of the people listed were, in fact, citizens. Meanwhile, the elections administrator in El Paso found the name of one of her own staffers on the list she received of voters to be purged—years after she had personally attended the staffer’s naturalization party.
According to French, “Comprehensive studies have shown that people who vote in this country are citizens. Our state leaders are trying to scapegoat immigrants.” Despite Texas’ “many existing measures to ensure a fair election,” she said, it’s when voters are wrongfully purged that elections become compromised.
Volunteers across the U.S. are working to make sure all eligible voters have the accommodations they need to vote. According to Izzy Bronstein, Common Cause’s national campaigns director, more than 25,000 volunteers have signed up across the country for Common Cause’s nonpartisan election protection program.
“The idea is always to make sure that all the voters have access to the ballot regardless of your political affiliation,” Keith said.
This article was updated on Oct. 24 to reflect the latest news on this issue, including on polling locations.
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