North Carolinians will see changes to early voting following Hurricane Helene

North Carolina election officials are adjusting their election rules To Ensure that residents in areas affected by recent hurricane damage can vote early in upcoming elections.

Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc across the Southeast, hitting swing states that had already begun early voting.

But the storm caused severe damage in several predominantly Red counties and voting centers as the focus shifted to disaster relief.

On Monday, the North Carolina Board of Elections passed a bipartisan emergency resolution that reformed the state's early voting process in 13 counties. Notably, all but Buncombe voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020.

The North Carolina Republican Party is focused on “political melee” to raise the game in the battleground state

Workers, community members and business owners clear debris after Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Adjustments include changing or adding polling locations and maintaining their availability, extending the hours a polling location is open, and adding or shortening the days a polling location is open within the early voting period, the election board said.

Voters in these counties also have more time to request an absentee ballot; the deadline is November 4th.

KEY NORTH CAROLINA COUNTY RESIDENTS REVEAL HOW THEY THINK THEIR COUNTY WILL VOTE IN NOVEMBER

The state Board of Elections identified 13 counties in western North Carolina as the counties hardest hit by the hurricane.

Counties applying the changes to their early voting procedures include: Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks outside the Chez What furniture store while visiting Valdosta, Georgia, a city hit by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (Evan Vucci)

Voters in those counties now have the option of submitting mail-in ballots to another county's board of elections, rather than following the previous protocol that required them to submit their ballots only to their local counties.

Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2020 by a margin of about 1.4 percentage points, and early voting has since been made a focus of Republican ground campaign efforts this cycle, the state's GOP said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.

However, the former president told Fox News that despite the storm's impact, he expects voters to continue to go to the polls.

“I think they're going to go out and vote if they have to crawl to a voting booth,” Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Monday. “And that’s exactly what happens.”

Swannanoa residents walk through devastating flood damage to the Swannanoa River in western North Carolina on Sunday, September 29, 2024. (Travis Long/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service)

The former president added that his daughter-in-law, who is co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), is working to help North Carolinians in affected areas vote.

“Lara is working on it. Other people are working on it and we're trying to make them comfortable, but they just lost their house,” Trump said.

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In-person early voting in the Old North State begins Thursday, October 17th and ends Saturday, November 2nd.