Overton Election Commission Prepping Poll Sites for Severe Weather

Local election officials are preparing for the possibility of severe weather as citizens head to the polls Tuesday.

Overton County Election Administrator Craig Story says preparations are being made in case polling locations lose power on election day.

“Today I’ve been on the phone with our 911 Director (Chris Masiongale) making sure that we’ve got generators available should we need those,” Story says. “We’ve been providing extra batteries to our polling places and just making sure we’re as best prepared as we can be.”

Story says the elections office is providing resources for polling locations in the event of a storm, including batteries for voting machines.

“I think we’ve got enough batteries that we could probably run for a pretty good while if we needed to,” Story says. “If I need to, I’ll make extra trips to the dollar store tomorrow and get us some more.”

Story says the election office is paying close attention to see if the weather may impact voter turnout.

“That’s definitely something that we try to plan for when we look at the forecast and see the potential for severe weather out there,” Story says. “The state elections office out of Nashville has been in contact with us wanting to make sure we’ve been making preparations for it and we have been making preparations for it.”

The National Weather Service reports severe storms are likely for most of the Southeastern part of the United States on Tuesday.