The hurricane election

How will the hurricanes change the election? Vast swaths of Appalachia are still recovering from Hurricane Helene. Now, Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall, either near Tampa Bay or closer to Sarasota, and Florida has experienced massive displacement, with nine counties ordering mandatory evacuations. (The Waffle House index roughly tracks with the official orders, providing additional impetus for residents to believe this storm will be severe.)

So how will this already-devastating, about-to-get-worse hurricane season affect the election that’s scheduled in less than a month?

Both North Carolina and Georgia were ravaged by Helene. They’re also both critical swing states with large rural populations. Local election officials are attempting to convey confidence, but struggling with the logistics of recovery.

“Early indications are that key election equipment such as ballots and voting machines were largely unaffected by the storm, avoiding a major last-minute logistical nightmare,” reports Politico. “But the mounting to-do list is daunting.” For residents who can’t return to their homes, for example, how will they receive their absentee ballots by the relevant deadlines? Will the absentee ballots actually arrive at the temporary addresses? And how do citizens predict where exactly they’ll be in just a few weeks?

“Roughly one-fifth of North Carolina voters live in areas battered by Helene, according to state voter registration statistics,” reports Politico. “Fourteen county election offices in the state were closed for the near-term as of Tuesday, according to Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.” Polling places might not have power or running water restored in time for Election Day.

Back in 2022, following that hurricane season (in particular, the devastation caused by Ian), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) let three Florida counties—Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota (all Republican, covering some 1 million voters)—move or consolidate their polling places, extend the number of days available for early voting, and have more permissive rules for where they could send absentee ballots.

It’s possible that the same type of thing will happen again, but the Florida Legislature has been sensitive to relaxed rules on voting in the wake of allegations of voter fraud following Donald Trump’s electoral loss in 2020. It would be bad if attempts to mitigate the effects of Milton or Helene led to real or perceived voter fraud, or the circulation of baseless conspiracy theories surrounding the election.

But it’s not just the mechanics of voting: The election could also be altered by FEMA incompetence or even the perception of FEMA incompetence. As noted in yesterday’s Roundup, former President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran out of money due to spending it all on housing illegal immigrants. But Twitter CEO/tech bigwig Elon Musk has been circulating these same types of easily disproven theories as well as claiming that a SpaceX engineer told him that FEMA “actively blocked” donations in the aftermath of Helene and is “seizing goods…and locking them away to state they are their own.” (Credit where credit is due: At the same time he is spreading such theories, Musk is also actively connecting hurricane victims with Starlink, which restores their internet.)

It’s of course very possible that the agency is attempting to take credit for the efforts of private citizens and organizations, but there’s not very solid evidence at present to indicate that’s happening in any sort of widespread manner. Other accounts—like this one, by The Dispatch‘s Kevin D. Williamson—contradict that narrative and show private organizations filling gaps but not being sabotaged by the agency.

Scenes from New York: My new pet peeve is the New York Times articles that make excuses for rent stabilization and rent control policies which make it harder for young families to afford apartments in this crazy city.

QUICK HITS

• A high number of journalists have been killed in the last year while covering the war in Gaza. “The rate, about five a week, is the highest since the CPJ [Committee to Protect Journalists] began keeping global records over 30 years ago,” reported The Washington Post back in February. But what percentage are actually, in essence, propagandists, or affiliated with a terrorist group (like Hamas)? Jewish Insider reports that “one-third of the Palestinian journalists listed by the Committee to Protect Journalists as being killed in the war in Gaza were employed by terrorist groups,” including Al-Aqsa Voice Radio, Al-Quds Al-Youm, and Quds News Network, which are reportedly affiliated with Hamas. “Another two worked for Palestinian Islamic Jihad outlets Kan’an and Mithaq Media Foundation.” A CPJ spokeswoman responded to this by saying: “We make our determination by researching whether a journalist’s past coverage meets our news and public affairs criteria, rather than on who owns or controls their outlets.”
• Footage from protests in New York City commemorating the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ brutal October 7 slaughter of Israelis:

• Tony Dokoupil literally did his job and asked Ta-Nehisi Coates challenging questions about his new book. This led to a workplace meltdown and, apparently, this:

• “In the last two decades, [Kamala] Harris has lived in two places—San Francisco and Washington, D.C.—and, as her public record shows, she has tried to ban the private ownership of handguns in both locations,” writes Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review. “A couple of weeks ago, Harris told Oprah Winfrey that if someone broke into her house, ‘they’re getting shot’ with her Glock. But, if that is true, it’s only true because she has been defeated in both of her attempts to make that impossible.”
• Kind of a brilliant business strategy: