In almost every election over the past 80 years, residents of North Fork, North Carolina — a small Appalachian community in the state’s mountainous northwest — flocked to a small log cabin to cast their votes.

The North Fork Voting House was no larger than a standard school bus and featured a window, a screen door and a leaky metal roof. On cold election days, the building’s coal furnace left a cloud of smoke in the air as poll workers and residents entered and exited the nondescript building.

“We were so proud of how crappy it was,” a poll worker told ABC News of the community’s love for the simple structure. “It was cold, it was damp and it was perfect for us.”

One of the last remaining polling-only locations in North Carolina, the North Fork facility recently had its roof and door replaced ahead of the upcoming election, and local resident Patricia Beaver had curtains made from red, white and blue fabrics provided by to segregate voting booths Ashe County Election Commissioner.

“It wasn’t a nice place,” Beaver said. “It was one of those fun little places that you celebrate and love.”

But when the remnants of Hurricane Helene dumped unprecedented rainfall on the area, the North Fork New River swelled – and the surge of water washed away the building, taking with it nearly a century of local history. The remains of the cinder blocks now lie scattered along the riverbank and the roof rests on the site of a nearby property.

“It was completely disheartening,” said Mark Palkovic, a nearby resident who worked at the polling station. “It’s the end of an era because this will never be rebuilt, and if it was, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“A really fluid situation”

What happened to the polling place in Ashe County is not an isolated incident. After Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck parts of the South within three weeks of each other, polling places in the swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Florida were damaged, flooded or washed away entirely, leaving election workers scrambling to relocate polling places and polling places provide a sense of normality a few weeks before the election.

“Some locations were damaged. Some are used as emergency shelters. Some are completely isolated,” said Aaron Troutman, elections specialist in Henderson County, North Carolina. “It’s a really fluid situation and obviously everyone is pretty close in making the decision.”

The ongoing emergency response has also complicated voting plans, as many polling stations are located in buildings used by emergency responders or as shelters. In some of North Carolina’s counties hardest hit by Helene, local officials have moved many of their polling locations due to damage from the storm and the ongoing hurricane response.

“Some of them don’t even exist anymore,” said Mary Beth Tipton, the elections director in Yancey County, where two polling places were inundated by flooding and most of the remaining polling places were relocated.

Hillsborough County, Florida, one of the state’s hardest-hit counties, initially lost two polling places after Hurricane Helene, but officials believe additional polling places were damaged by Hurricane Milton. The assessment of the county’s 240 Election Day locations is ongoing as many locations still do not have power.

“There was five feet of water in one of them,” Craig Latimer, Hillsborough County elections director, told ABC News

Despite the challenges of quickly adjusting their voting plans in the weeks leading up to Election Day, all election officials who spoke to ABC News for this story expressed confidence that the necessary changes will be made in a timely manner to ensure every vote is in the most powerful Areas affected by recent natural disasters are counted.

“We’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘There will be no elections this year.’ We want to make sure it stops right there. We’re voting this year,” Avery County Deputy Supervisor of Elections Joseph Trivette told ABC News.

While election officials have reassured displaced residents that damage from the storm will not impact access to voting, disruptions are emerging as presidential poll results are razor-thin in key swing states, including North Carolina.

“It’s a state where margins matter, and I think it’s entirely possible that it makes a difference in at least some races,” said Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western North Carolina University.

“Significant damage to the infrastructure”

When early voting begins in North Carolina on Thursday, voters will have access to 419 early voting sites, with Helene only losing four early voting sites.

Buncombe County — which includes the hard-hit city of Asheville — was the only county in the state to close some early voting sites and operated 10 early voting sites, compared to 14 sites originally planned. Two of the locations that are no longer in operation are at fire stations used for emergency response purposes, and two other polling locations were canceled due to staffing issues, according to Corinne Duncan, director of elections services in Buncombe County.

“Our office has been preparing for the 2024 election for years, but we certainly didn’t expect this,” Duncan told ABC News.

Last week, the North Carolina State Board of Elections approved a series of measures to give election officials in counties most affected by Helene more flexibility to change their voting schedules, including changing the locations, dates and hours of operation of the Early voting locations. Voters in the 25 counties most affected by the storm will have the option to cast their mail-in ballots at any early voting location in the state.

“Having nearly all early voting locations open after such a devastating storm is an accomplishment that all North Carolinians should be proud of,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said Tuesday. “The people of Western North Carolina are going to vote.”

With early voting set to begin in Florida on Monday, election officials in the state told ABC News they are optimistic voters will be able to cast their ballots at the polls. The seven early voting sites in Pinellas County were not affected by the two hurricanes, and 27 early voting sites in Hillsborough County will be open to voters, officials told ABC News.

“We actually lost one of the sites to the hurricanes,” Latimer said. “But we misplaced it.”

In a letter to Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd on Tuesday, the Florida Association of Election Supervisors called for 11 changes for affected counties, including an extension of early voting through Election Day and the relocation or consolidation of several polling locations.

“The cumulative impacts of these storms have resulted in significant damage to infrastructure, power outages, and the displacement of residents, including voters, poll workers, and poll workers critical to the electoral process,” two association officials wrote.

In Georgia, which began early voting on Tuesday, there were no major early voting disruptions due to Helene and Milton, and the state set a record for the first day of early voting on Tuesday.

“As normal as possible”

While early voting in North Carolina is set to take place as planned for most of the state’s voters, officials are still assessing dozens of polling places to determine whether they will be operational on Election Day.

Election officials in Yancey County are seeking to relocate 10 of the county’s 11 polling locations, while officials in Avery County have reduced the total number of polling locations after Helene impacted 14 of the county’s 19 polling locations. Two inches of mud remains at a polling place, the Avery County Senior Center, after three feet of water flowed into the building during the storm, county officials said.

Avery County now plans to operate eight fewer polling places than usual on Election Day, although county officials have set up an additional early voting location in a flood-hit region of the county. For the relocated polling places, the county has found alternative locations that officials hope will be convenient for voters.

“Luckily for us, all of the polling places we had to move are right next to the precinct, so they don’t have to drive that far,” Trivette said.

In hard-hit Buncombe County, election officials are still working to confirm whether 14 of the state’s 80 polling places will be usable on Election Day, while 464 of the county’s 537 poll workers have confirmed they will work on Election Day.

In addition to dealing with the destruction of the North Fork Voting House, Ashe County had to relocate six of the county’s 17 polling places after two polling places were flooded and another lost its footprint, according to Devon Houck, director of the Ashe County Board of Elections.

“We fought really hard to keep things as normal as possible,” said Robert Inman, the elections director in Haywood County, which relocated three polling places damaged by the storm.

In neighboring Georgia, election officials have identified a total of three polling locations that will need to be relocated due to the storm in Richmond, Lowndes and Columbia counties.

“As far as the impact of the hurricane goes, we look pretty solid overall,” said Gabriel Sterling, a senior elections official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office.