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Shifted precincts and pop-up tents part of Election Day in Helene's wake

Election Day did not include a normal trip to the polls for many in the Helene disaster counties of western North Carolina.

In Avery County, Banner Elk residents joined Linville voters in a combined ad-hoc precinct after their usual polling locations were too damaged for casting ballots.

In Yancey County, downed trees in the mountain forests and washed-out creeks and riverbeds remain over a month after the storm. Many voters saw their brick-and-mortar locations replaced by temporary white tents powered by generators. 

Burnsville voter Christina McKenzie was undeterred by it all.

"Because I think if you live in this country it’s our duty to vote in an election regardless of who you vote for," she says. "If we are here and not participating in the process of democracy then we’re kind of taking a free ride on everyone else’s work.”

Locally, the election will have an impact on Watauga County’s Board of Commissioners. Republicans held sway with two incumbents retaining their seats and a third, Ronnie Marsh, defeating incumbent Democrat Charlie Wallin.

That’s according to complete but unofficial results.

The win will give the GOP a 3-2 advantage on the board.

 

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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