LEE COUNTY, Fla. — As voters cast their ballots at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Recreation Center in Lee County Monday, just feet away were piles of rubble, ripped and tattered screens, fences, and so much more debris.
It’s all among the remains of Hurricane Ian, nearly six weeks after the storm made history along the Gulf Coast County.
“There’s a lot of displaced voters. Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, they were devastated, but the entire county was affected, and there’s people displaced all over,” said Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle.
As result, the county has also had to adjust how and where voters can cast their ballots, Doye explained.
“We’re only going to have 12 sites on election day when we normally have 97,” he said.
Those 12 sites are early voting locations and will remain open through election day under an emergency executive order issued by the Governor to ease voting in counties slammed by Ian.
Early voters we spoke with Monday afternoon in Fort Myers were determined to cast their votes despite dealing with their own losses from the storm.
Paul Griffin still doesn’t have a roof but felt it was important to cast his ballot for this year’s midterms.
“If you don’t vote, you don’t have a say so,” he said.
Ed Jette of Fort Myers also has a tarp covering his roof at home, but it didn’t stop him from keeping a routine he told us he’s had since he started voting decades ago.
"I always physically come out and vote; it’s a routine I’ve always done,” he said.
Lee County is predominately Republican. About 45% of the county's more than 500,000 registered voters had cast a ballot early or through vote-by-mail as of Monday afternoon. Republican voters cast most of those early ballots, according to the Lee County Supervisor of Elections website.
Most voters we spoke with Monday tell us the hurricane didn’t have much of an impact on their vote, but it did give them one more reason to show up.
