RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – Election season has already broken all records in North Carolina, as more than 2.3 million people in the state have cast their ballots. Tens of thousands of those votes came from western North Carolina, where concerns about voting emerged immediately after Hurricane Helene devastated the region.

“At one point we thought we would need 15 secure tents in the disaster areas. As of this morning, we think it will only take seven,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Electionssaid.

Legislation passed Thursday requires two western counties, McDowell and Henderson, to add early voting sites to accommodate the number of voters. Brinson Bell says this is in addition to those already planned.

“When we started early voting, there were 80 sites planned in these disaster-affected counties, and we were able to open 76 of the planned early voting sites,” she said.

With hundreds of people displaced after Hurricane Helena and temporarily living in other parts of the state, there are still ways to vote.

“You can still vote, but if you can’t vote in your home county during the early voting period or on Election Day, you need to act quickly,” Brinson Bell said. “You should request an absentee ballot now, and I mean now, to have it delivered to wherever you are temporarily staying. »

Early voting ends November 2.

If you are not yet registered, remember that you can register and vote at the same time at any early voting site in your county while early voting is open.