Helene hit Trump strongholds in Georgia and North Carolina. It could swing the election.

Officials in two swing states that were devastated by Hurricane Helene face crucial decisions in the next few days about how to help people vote after massive flooding ripped away roads, shuttered towns and dispersed residents.

North Carolina and Georgia have voter registration deadlines next week, a tipping point in the race that threatens to diminish turnout for former President Donald Trump, experts say. Officials there could extend the deadlines for registering and for casting absentee ballots, and set up new polling places in areas where floods destroyed roads.

Research has shown that major disasters can influence both voter turnout and voter preference — and in this case that could be bad news for Trump.

Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris visited Georgia this week, and the state that President Joe Biden won by just 11,779 votes in 2020.

The stakes are as big as any election that’s been held shortly after a major disaster.

Helene is the first catastrophic event in US history to affect two critical swing states within six weeks of a presidential election. Both Georgia and North Carolina have 16 electoral votes — enough to decide the outcome of the race.

“There’s going to be a lot of (voting) alterations, and it probably is going to affect turnout,” said Andy Jackson, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Civitas Center for Public Integrity, a free-market think tank in North Carolina.

The parts of western North Carolina and eastern Georgia that were flooded by Helene are largely Republican. In 2020, Trump won 61 percent of the vote in the North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster after Helene. He won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster counties.

Research shows that disasters can influence voter turnout when they strike shortly before an election. States have reacted by extending deadlines for registering to vote and submitting absentee ballots, opening new polling places, and letting displaced residents vote by email or fax.

Their actions have had varied results, according to studies that are gaining prominence as six states from Florida to Virginia deal with damage from Helene.

“You need to do everything possible to erect emergency polling places in generally the same places voters are used to vote,” says Kevin Morris, a voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice.

A 2022 study by Morris found that voter turnout fell below historical averages in the panhandle counties of Florida after Hurricane Michael demolished the area in October 2018. Although Florida made it easier to vote by absentee ballots, voters were confused by the state’s moves to close and consolidate polling places. They weren’t sure where to go on Election Day.

“If (a voter’s) house is damaged or whatever else and they realize suddenly their polling place has moved, then maybe that’s the straw that makes it too much for them to vote,” Morris told POLITICO’s E&E News. “A lot of the decreased turnout was attributable to the closure of polling places around the panhandle.”

State officials in Georgia and North Carolina are preparing for counties to relocate polling places.

When the North Carolina Legislature meets Wednesday, it could give counties money for emergency polling places and extend both the Oct. 11 registration deadline and the Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots to be received.

State records show that nearly 40,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters in the 25 North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster following Helene. Fewer than 1,000 have been returned.

County elections offices — five of which remained closed Thursday — will assess damage to early voting sites and polling stations to determine “which facilities won’t be available,” North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson-Bell said this week.

After Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina in September 2018, the state extended the registration deadline and let counties relocate voting sites.

But in 2020, when the elections board relaxed absentee voting requirements, lawmakers said the board overstepped its authority and later changed state election rules. One change ended a grace period that allowed mail-in ballots to be received three days after Election Day.

“There’s definitely a layer of politics on top of any decision they make given what happened after Covid,” said Chris Cooper, a professor at Western Carolina University who focuses on Southern politics and elections.

In Georgia, where Monday is the last day to register to vote, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement that “physical infrastructure” will be in place when early voting starts Oct. 15. Counties “having to relocate early voting locations” must notify voters, Raffensperger added.

W. Travis Doss Jr., executive director of elections in Richmond County in eastern Georgia, told CNN on Thursday that some polling stations “could be unable to be used.” The heavily Democratic county cast 68 percent of its votes for Biden in 2020.

Other year election disasters do not appear to have affected previous presidential elections.

Superstorm Sandy struck uncontested states such as Connecticut, New York and New Jersey in late October in 2012.

Hurricane Matthew, in October 2016, hit only one contested state — Florida — and spread damage along the Atlantic Coast, a mix of Democratic and Republican areas.

But overall, research shows that disasters affect voter turnout.

Sandy hit the tristate area one week before the 2012 presidential election, leading some New York voters to cast ballots in makeshift voting tents powered by generators in neighborhoods that didn’t have electricity.

Decisions by New Jersey officials to keep voting accessible to storm victims proved more controversial.

The lieutenant governor at the time, Kim Guadagno (R), ruled that anyone who was displaced by Sandy could be designated an overseas voter, allowing them to cast ballots by fax and email. The decision overwhelmed county governments by suddenly inundating them with thousands of fax and email applications.

A 2014 Rutgers Law School report accuses Guadagno’s decision, saying that remote voting caused “chaos” and made electronic votes vulnerable to hacking.

“Although emergency action was warranted, Internet and email voting was not the solution,” report author Penny Venetis said at the time.

Another study found that Sandy “made little difference” in determining whether people in New York City would vote, partly because voters were highly motivated to reelect President Barack Obama.

When people see an election as “historic” or potentially having “long-lasting effects” on their community, “they are willing to endure costs such as low temperatures, long lines, and even traveling to distant polling places,” the researchers found.