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In between Donald Trump and his running mate Senator JD Vance spreading misinformation about hurricane relief and lying that FEMA money had gone to undocumented migrants, their campaign called on North Carolina to expand voter access in areas where Hurricane Helene hit disproptionately hard.
Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles called on Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat and an ally of Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Republican-controlled state legislature to make sure that voters in a county hit by Helene could vote from their current location rather than their local precinct. They also asked to be able to dispatch a bipartisan team of election officials to assist voters with requesting absentee ballots and delivering them; allow for Sunday voting; and to allow voters displaced in another county to have a provisional ballot, among other various priorities.
“Swift action from the North Carolina General Assembly and the governor will ensure the people of their state have their voices heard on November 5th,” LaCivita and Wiles wrote.
All of these provisions make sense, given that Hurricane Helene has made it harder for people to cast their ballot. But it also directly contradicts Trump’s regular disavowals of mail-in voting and provisional ballots, as well as his regular calls to only have in-person voting. Just last month in North Carolina, Trump told rallygoers: “I would rather see one-day voting, paper ballots, voter ID, and proof of citizenship, and we have a nice, honest election.”
But it makes sense that the Trump campaign would lobby for expanded voting access in a must-win swing state, particularly in western North Carolina.
While Asheville, a liberal college town full of breweries, is located in Buncombe County, which voted for Joe Biden by more than 20 points in 2020, the surrounding counties voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 and 2020. As Harris has invested heavily in North Carolina, Trump will need to maximize voter turnout in that region if he wants to win the state.
Incidentally, North Carolina’s State Board of Elections voted unanimously to allow for many of the provisions, such as allowing people to request an absentee ballot delivered to a new location, as well as establishing locations where people can cast their ballot outside of their precinct and establishing more than one polling location in a precincts for people affected by Helene.
Not surprisingly, the inverse is true in Florida. Democrats do not think Harris will win the state. But they are investing heavily in trying to win Florida’s Senate seat. In addition, Florida will have a ballot initiative to amend its state constitution to codify abortion rights. The party sees 2024 as its chance to finally turn around years of losses.
Florida’s voter registration deadline passed earlier this week. But Democrats hope to extend the window for registering, considering that Hurricane Milton is about to hit the state hard.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic nominee for Senate who is running against incumbent Senator Rick Scott, called on DeSantis to extend the voter registration deadline as Florida recovers from Helene and hunkers down for Milton.
Various organizations — including the League of Women Voters for Florida, and the NAACP’s Florida branch and the Southern Poverty Law Center — have filed a lawsuit against DeSantis in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida aimed at preventing widespread disenfranchisement.
The back-and-forth on this same issue in two different states illustrates how damaging highly partisan leadership can be. North Carolina, a solidly purple state with a Democratic governor, had an overwhelmingly bipartisan response that provided relief for both red and blue areas. Conversely, in Florida, which has long shed its image as a swing state to become the nerve center of the GOP, voting during a disaster has become just the latest ideological football.
