Officials in the states of North Carolina and Florida made amendments to their voting processes for the fall as Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton devastated multiple communities.

Hurricane Helene impacted the southeastern portion of the country, wreaking havoc from the big bend region of Florida to western Virginia and North Carolina, while Hurricane Milton made landfall on Wednesday night south of Tampa Bay. With resources strained amid their responses to the storms, state agencies have enabled emergency measures for their voting processes.

Members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections unanimously voted this week to allow more flexibility for the thirteen counties where “infrastructure, accessibility to voting sites, and postal services remain severely disrupted” after Hurricane Helene. The county election boards can modify early voting and election day voting sites, as well as recruit more poll workers, while residents who are temporarily living elsewhere will still be able to cast their ballots.

“These measures were put in place to ensure the victims of Helene can vote in the upcoming election and provide election officials in the hardest hit areas the tools they need to conduct a secure election under extraordinarily difficult conditions,” North Carolina State Board of Elections executive director Karen Brinson Bell commented in a statement from the agency. “Just like the people of western North Carolina, election officials are resilient. We are determined to get the job done for our neighbors and friends in western North Carolina.”

North Carolina lawmakers unanimously passed $5 million in funds to assist with election administration across twenty-five counties impacted by Hurricane Helene as part of a larger relief package. North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper approved the bill on Thursday.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis endorsed an executive order noting that counties with a “uniquely significant and continuing impact” from Hurricane Helene have a number of early voting sites and polling places which were “damaged or otherwise rendered unusable.” The order therefore permits election supervisors to consolidate their polling places.

The number of counties in Florida with increased voting flexibility will likely grow once the damage from Hurricane Milton, which impacted coastal communities with storm surge and induced tornadoes across the state, is assessed by state officials responding to the disaster.

DeSantis said in a statement that Hurricane Milton indeed “moved quickly across central Florida, producing significant flooding, high winds, and destructive tornadoes.” There are millions of residents presently without power, yet more than 50,000 linemen are working to restore the infrastructure and have already returned power to nearly 700,000 accounts.