Could the damage from Hurricane Helene affect voting in Georgia?

ATLANTA — The U.S. Postal Service has suspended operations at scores of its facilities across Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Helene, reigniting fears about its ability to process hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots in time for this year’s presidential election.

Even before the deadly storm hit, federal lawmakers in Georgia called on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to resign over chronic delays in mail delivery. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff introduced legislation requiring Senate confirmation and term limits for DeJoy’s position. And DeJoy was summoned to a recent U.S. House subcommittee hearing to explain his agency’s readiness for the Nov. 5 election.

Driven in part by the coronavirus pandemic, Georgia voters cast a record 1.3 million votes by mail during the 2020 election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, which has estimated about 250,000 such votes will be cast this year, based on previous elections.

County election officials can begin sending out mail-in ballots on Oct 7. For them to be counted, they need to be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Georgia ranked last this year in a Postal Service report tracking mail delivery time.

As authorities assessed the hurricane’s damage Saturday, the Postal Service announced it was temporarily shutting down 42 of its locations, including some in Decatur, Waycross and Valdosta. By Monday, that list had more than doubled to 90, adding several locations in the Augusta area.

U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter represents much of southeast Georgia, including storm-damaged areas where postal services have been suspended. On Sept. 18, he joined Georgia’s eight other Republican congressmen in sending a letter to DeJoy, outlining concerns about his agency’s readiness for what is expected to be close presidential race.

“We’ve gotten numerous calls in our office from people who are not able to get their medications and not having their mail delivered in a timely fashion, resulting in them actually not getting their bills paid on time and in some cases getting their power cut off,” Carter said in an interview Tuesday. “This situation with Hurricane Helene is going to just exacerbate that.”

The Postal Service is dispatching “recovery teams” to parts of the state impacted by the hurricane, said Tiffany Rowland, a spokeswoman for the agency

“The status of operations is being continually evaluated and adjustments made to ensure safe and swift restoration of delivery and retail services in locations as soon as possible,” she said Monday. “Efforts will continue as long as needed until full services are restored.”

In a 31-page audit report released in July, the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General identified “operational changes that pose a risk of individual ballots not being counted.”

The National Association of Secretaries of State highlighted that report in a Sept. 11 letter to DeJoy, urging him to take action: “Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process.”

DeJoy responded to concerns about his agency in a hearing Thursday before the U.S. House’s Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. In a written statement he provided the panel, DeJoy said 94% of election mail sent first-class this fiscal year has arrived on time. The agency, he added, will begin using “extraordinary measures” on Oct. 21 to quicken ballot delivery, including additional collections and special after-hours pickups and handoffs.

“Let me be clear: the Postal Service is ready to deliver the nation’s mail-in ballots,” he said. “We have a robust and tested process for proper handling and timely delivery of election mail that is more than capable of handling any demand during the upcoming election.”

Nonprofit groups seeking to register more voters in Georgia worry the hurricane will worsen disenfranchisement. Those groups have been critical of a sweeping 2021 law Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed to tighten absentee voting regulations. Gov. Brian Kemp signed the measure into law following GOP losses in presidential and U.S. Senate races.

Coupled with that law, the Postal Service’s suspension of operations in the wake of the storm “could be devastating for Georgians who depend on” mail-in ballots, said Max Flugrath, a spokesman for Fair Fight Action.

Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project, expressed similar concerns: “This was all predicable because we had just been through it in 2018 with Hurricane Michael. None of this is a surprise. We know when hurricane season is, and we know how it hits Georgia.”

A recent poll from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a tight race in Georgia, one of seven battleground states expected to determine the next occupant of the White House. In a sign of the state’s significance, Trump toured storm-ravaged Valdosta Monday. Harris is scheduled to visit the state Wednesday and survey the damage.

Meanwhile, state officials are assessing hurricane damage to local election offices across Georgia.

“We are working with between 90 and 100 counties that have suffered various levels of damage from the storm,” said Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. “We want to make sure the election workers are safe, that their equipment is secure and undamaged and that their facilities can be made to function prior to the in-person voting starting.”

______