Hurricane Ian slashed Election Day polling sites in hard-hit county
When Ian tore through southwestern Florida, it destroyed homes, businesses -- and polling sites. And in one hard-hit county, the nearly 100 voting locations have nearly dropped into the single digits.
Florida's eighth-most populated county will face a severely limited number of polling sites this Election Day after Hurricane Ian's destruction led to a shortage of manpower and resources.
Lee County's 97 polling locations were slashed to just 12 due not only to structural damage but also a lack of poll workers and trucks to deliver voting equipment.
Even after an Oct. 13 emergency executive order from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed Lee County to extend the number of days for early voting, the county's Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle told AccuWeather that he had been hoping for more early voters to avoid long lines on Election Day. Of the 300,000 voters he estimated would turn out overall, he said only 190,000 people had cast their ballot as of Friday.
"The way this model works is to get everybody out early because we don't want everybody showing up on Election Day with only 12 sites," Doyle said.
See the 12 polling sites here. Other voting information can be found here.
The governor's order authorized the supervisors of elections in Charlotte, Lee and Sarasota counties to begin early voting as early as Monday, Oct. 24, through Election Day and to designate additional early voting locations; to allow voters to request by phone that their vote-by-mail ballot be mailed to a different address other than the one on record; to relocate and consolidate polling locations; and to increase the pool of eligible poll workers by making eligible any poll workers who received training within the last two years and encourage state employees to serve as poll workers.
Water floods a damaged trailer park in Fort Myers, Florida, on Oct. 1, 2022, after Hurricane Ian passed over the area. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Oct. 13, 2022, announced an executive order expanding voting access for the midterm elections in three counties where Ian destroyed polling places and displaced thousands of people. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The three counties were some of the hardest-hit areas by Hurricane Ian, with the Category 4 storm making landfall in Lee County then crashing ashore on the Florida mainland in Charlotte County. Across the Southeast, Ian claimed at least 125 lives, at least 60 of which were in Lee County.
Survivors described the destruction as a war zone, and AccuWeather Founder and CEO Dr. Joel N. Myers estimated the total losses caused by Hurricane Ian in the U.S. could amount to between $180 billion and $210 billion.
The number of polling sites destroyed then not having enough poll workers to open new sites and not enough trucks to deliver equipment have snowballed into the current situation in Lee County, Doyle said.
On top of that, poll workers weren't the only ones to be displaced by Hurricane Ian. The displacement of voters is another concern that Doyle voiced.
"People have left the state because they had a house up north, and they're not even looking back right now," Doyle said. "If this was a normal election, our turnout is great. But this is not a normal election. We're working under emergency conditions, so we need to get people to vote early."
In this Oct. 6, 2020, file photo, a roll of "I Voted!" stickers are shown at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department in Doral, Florida. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
Lee County voters will be able to vote at any of the 12 available voting sites up through Election Day, regardless of their assigned precinct, and the Louise Du Pont Crowninshield Community House will serve as an additional voting site on Tuesday.
While a lot of debris has been picked up since Ian's landfall, Doyle said that traffic may still be bad due to ongoing cleanup efforts and crews moving throughout the county. However, so long as a voter can make it to the line before the polls close, they can still cast their ballot.
The polls in Lee County will remain open Monday until 6 p.m. and will open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but it will likely not be without a waiting time.
"If you wait until Election Day, and I'm guessing there will be some lines, bring your chair and you can sit down and wait and move it along," Doyle said.
Reporting by AccuWeather Senior Content Producer Monica Danielle.
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