In Tampa Bay, Election Day comes less than four weeks after Hurricane Milton, the second storm in a historic one-two punch, leaving uncertainty about the impact of natural disasters on voting.

But local officials have made accommodations, and many hope the storms won’t cause a huge effect.

Historically, some fall hurricanes have caused significant disruption, impacting registration activities, voter attitudes and turnout on Election Day.

In 2018, for example, people in northern Florida counties were hardest hit by Hurricane Michael 7% less likely to vote than their neighbors, a published study found.

There were also fewer new voter registrations there than the rest of the state, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

That storm preceded a midterm, but research also found voter turnout in the 2012 general election was lower in some areas. affected by Hurricane Sandy.

This year, the deadline to register to vote in Florida was October 7. At the time, Floridians were simultaneously struggling to recover from Hurricane Helene and prepare for Milton, which arrived two days later.

So far, the number of early voting in the state has not worried election observers. In some counties, voter enthusiasm has remained flat or increased. While mail-in ballots were initially delayed following weather-related USPS outages, they were delivered once they were back online, local election supervisors said.

As of Monday morning, 8.2 million Floridians had voted early and by mail; however, final turnout will be unknown until polls close.

Apples-to-apples comparisons with 2020, when 11 million voted, are so far impossible because the coronavirus pandemic changed voting behavior that year.

In Pinellas, Sarasota, Hillsborough, Pasco and Lee, nearly 50 polling places changed polling locations due to damage and effects from the hurricane.

Twenty-five are in Pinellas. The furthest distance from an old polling station to a new one is 12 minutes by car without traffic, according to Google Maps. The further a voter has to travel to vote, the less likely they are to do so, research shows.

Supervisors sent mail-in ballots to people at new addresses who would have had to move after the storms. They said they did not track the return rates on those specific ballots.

In Pinellas County, the epicenter of Helene’s flood damage, officials were hesitant to speculate on the impacts, but noted a drop in ballots so far.

“It may be because of the hurricane. It could be due to political spending, but we’re not in a position to speculate on that,” said Dustin Chase, a spokesman for the Office of the Supervisor of Elections.

In Manatee County, Supervisor of Elections James Satcher said turnout in some of the precincts that were hardest hit was two to three percentage points off the county’s overall rate.

In Sarasota County, officials saw little effect, said Paul Donnelly, an elections spokesman for the elections office.

Palmetto Beach resident Crystal Azan, 37, of Tampa, said flooding inside her home during the storms reached about 4 feet. Azan still lives in her damaged home and said the hurricanes prompted her to make sure she was ready to vote as soon as possible.

Thinking the line would be long, he arrived at the Fred B. Karl County Center in downtown Tampa about an hour after it opened on Oct. 21, the first day, and brought snacks. To her surprise, she said, he went right in, picked up the ballot and was ready to cast it with ease.

“I’m very impressed with the work the county and the city have done,” she said.

Michael T. Morley, a professor of election law at Florida State University, said some voters in the areas hardest hit by the two hurricanes will certainly face substantial challenges to turnout.

“There are some people who have been affected so much that, despite the efforts of the state, despite the emergency measures that have been implemented, it’s either too difficult for them to vote, or impossible to vote, or frankly, they just have higher priorities in their minds. now: rebuilding our own lives,” Morley said.

In Taylor County, where Helene made landfall, officials replaced a polling place on the beach with a mobile unit on the same lot so voters could use the same address to get there.

“Even with all the devastation in our county from the hurricanes, our voters are eager to cast their ballots,” said Taylor County Supervisor of Elections Dana Southerland.

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