Written by: Sam Garrett
On September 16, National Voter Registration Day, Four Eggers testified in Washington, D.C. before U.S. House Administration Subcommittee on Elections. Eggers is an attorney in Boone and serves as the secretary for the North Carolina Board of Elections. Florida’s former Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Karen Bell, former executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections, joined the panel with Eggers.
House subcommittee members made statements about the necessity to provide elections regardless of weather.
“The next natural disaster does not care if it is one day, one month or 45 days before Election Day,” Alabama Representative Terri Sewell said.
Panel participants made opening statements to include reflections on Hurricane Helene’s arrival 38 days before Election Day 2024 and 21 days before early voting started.
“We took part in bipartisan actions to help meet the needs to voters – we all worked together,” Eggers said. “It was an incredible success story. The credit for high turnout should not be given to the changes we made to accommodate the situation just after the storm, but should be given to the voters.”
According to Byrd, during the last election Florida had to make special exceptions for line workers who had been displaced to other towns and counties to help rebuild infrastructure so that they could cast their vote.
“Regardless of disasters, people expect elections to happen on time,” Byrd said. “Elections are challenging enough when the sun is shining.”
Bell emphasized that voters need to have confidence that election offices have what they need and that communication is essential.
“We don’t stop an election; we figure out how to proceed,” Bell said. Following Helene “cell phone towers were down, communication was hit and miss, we didn’t know the condition of our staff for days in some cases … In one week, all county offices had re-opened. Only seven temp sites were needed and western North Carolina surpassed North Carolina turnout by over 2%.”
The subcommittee questioned the panel about their experiences.
“I am very proud of the work me and my colleagues did to make necessary changes to meet needs, but not in the name of politics,” Eggers said. “Based upon the changes and work that was done, we opened all but seven precincts; I would like to think we were able to mitigate the effect of the storm on voters’ ability to vote.”
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