Jan Wesner Childs
More than a million power outages related to hurricanes and a winter storm are complicating voting for people in several states as utility operators and local officials rush to restore electricity and repair damages to polling locations before Election Day.
Hurricane Zeta shut down some polling sites, cut off early voting and affected elections operations in some Southern states on Wednesday and Thursday, while a winter storm in Oklahoma has left more than 200,000 homes, businesses, public buildings and other locations without power for days.
The biggest Election Day impacts could come in Louisiana, where more than 325,000 power outages were still being reported as of about 4 p.m. EDT Friday.
“It is too early to say which polling places are not going to be in service on Tuesday but those decisions are going to be made very quickly," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a Friday afternoon news briefing.
Edwards said it's likely that some polling places could be moved to different locations, and acknowledged that communicating that to residents without power could be a challenge.
“Quite frankly there will be some people I suspect won’t know until they pull up to their polling location and see a sign," Edwards said.
Here's a state-by-state look at how voting is being impacted by weather-related power outages heading into Election Day on Tuesday.
Louisiana
Early voting in Louisiana ended the day before Zeta hit, so the focus there is making sure polling locations are ready by Election Day.
“The Secretary of State's office is working in close coordination with local officials to assess the damage sustained by our election partners and infrastructure, including registrar of voters offices, clerk of court offices, warehouses, and polling locations," Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said in a news release Thursday.
"We will have a more thorough grasp of the damage to individual polling places over the next 24-48 hours and we will coordinate with clerks of court and local governing authorities if any emergency polling place relocations are necessary," he said.
(MORE: Hurricanes Laura and Delta Complicate Voting For Displaced Louisianans)
The state saw a record turnout for early voting, despite some areas still recovering from previous hurricanes and thousands of evacuees who haven't yet returned home.
Early voters in Lake Charles, spared by Zeta but hit hard by Laura in August and Delta earlier this month, turned out in twice the numbers as they did in the last presidential election, according to a report by The American South.
Still, there were concerns that the storm damage, power outages and the coronavirus pandemic could all lead to voter apathy.
“They are still trying to rebuild. When you have those kinds of challenges, it makes it very hard for folks to be interested in voting," said Ashley Shelton, executive director of the Power Coalition, an activist group in New Orleans. "They feel frustrated and unsupported.”
Early voting sites in Lake Charles were consolidated to three locations after Hurricane Laura. A few areas hit by that storm are also still without power.
Georgia
Polling places in at least 16 counties in Georgia were affected on Thursday, mostly due to widespread power outages, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Some opened later than usual or directed voters to alternate sites. Metro Atlanta's Douglas County ended early voting altogether due to damage and lack of power.
Besides power outages, early voting was also delayed in some locations because poll workers couldn't reach them or there wasn't enough light to see, according to the AJC.
The issues prompted voter advocacy groups to call for an extension to early voting, which ends Friday.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger requested that Georgia Power prioritize restoring power in areas where polling places are located.
“We don’t see there will be an overall impact to voting at this time,” Raffensperger said Thursday. “We still have early voting for the balance of today and tomorrow and obviously the full election on Tuesday.”
Georgia has an emergency system in place to use paper ballots in the event of power outages on Election Day, but not during early voting.
More than 240,000 utility customers were without power as of about 4 p.m. EDT Friday.
Mississippi
Jackson County Circuit Clerk Randy Carney told the Associated Press early voter turnout was noticeably lower Thursday at the county courthouse, which was operating on a generator and about one-third of its normal staff.
Carney said 400 people a day were coming in to vote earlier in the week. That dropped to 200 ahead of the storm on Wednesday, when the courthouse closed early. And only 20 voters had shown up by noon Thursday.
Carney said he didn't think the storm would affect overall voter turnout, though.
Nearly 130,000 power outages were reported there Friday afternoon.
Alabama
Thursday was the last day to request an absentee ballot or vote early in person in Alabama, where more than 229,000 power outages were ongoing.
In Mobile, the absentee voting office was open Thursday even though other county offices were closed.
Voters, some holding umbrellas, lined up outside the county courthouses in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, the AP reported.
Oklahoma
Trees and power lines were covered with up to an inch of ice after a winter storm, named Billy by The Weather Channel, blew through earlier this week. The storm caused widespread power outages.
Areas in and around Oklahoma City were hit hardest. Utility company OG&E was prioritizing election-related power outages, according to KFOR. Early voting started Thursday and runs through Saturday.
The Oklahoma County Election Board opted to use generator power because ongoing outages are expected as limbs continue to fall from trees and work is done to restore power.
“That would mean we would go dark for a few minutes during our early voting and then we’d have to reboot the whole system,” Board Secretary Doug Sanderson said.
Polling places will stay open even without power, he said. Workers will set up booths in areas where there is natural light and use flashlights if necessary.
“They’ll secure the ballots and return them to our office, and we’ll count them here,” Sanderson said.
A person casts their vote in the glow of a voting machine during early voting at the Dunwoody Library after Hurricane Zeta knocked out power in the surrounding areas on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, in Dunwoody, Ga.The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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