Hurricane Sandy has brought some of the wrath normally felt in the southern states up the eastern seaboard and some fear that it could affect voting in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
In the days after Sandy’s landfall, New York blogger inothernews and others on Twitter and Tumblr posted complaints about hearing political advertisements on the radio.
A similar but more prevalent uproar about the famed New York City Marathon continuing as planned forced Mayor Michael Bloomberg to officially cancel the event.
Voting, however, will not be canceled.
While some polling places remain without power, New York officials plan to build temporary voting sites in tents, according to The New York Times.
The three states most affected are expected to vote for President Barack Obama, according to an aggregation of polls on political website Real Clear Politics.
While this means a lower voter turnout due to Sandy’s aftereffects might not change the turnout of the electoral college vote, it could have a much larger negative effect on Obama in the nation’s popular vote.
Real Clear Politics also shows Obama as having the close lead of 0.2 percent in the popular national vote.
Gallup Polls paused its national tracking of voters in the presidential election as of last Monday, in order to provide for the lack of ability to contact many Northeasterners.
Gallup instead used data collected over a series of days, after determining a lack of bias with its numbers.
No storm in southern Louisiana has greatly affected voter turnout as Sandy might, although Hurricane Katrina in 2005 did cause much animosity toward then-New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and FEMA.
Another aspect of voting Sandy already disturbed is early voting. Postal services have been disrupted, which could cause fewer ballots to arrive on time.
Analysts expect a third of this year’s votes to come from early voting.
Ellen Hoffman, left, and James Gibson cast their ballots at a polling place at the Wicomico County Youth and Civic Center in Salisbury, Md., Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, after superstorm Sandy passed through the area. Early voting resumed in Maryland Wednesday after two days of cancellations due to superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
