NEW ORLEANS — Even if you've voted in the same precinct every year since you were eligible to, this year could still look different if you're pushing the voting machine buttons in the metro New Orleans Area.
Hurricane Zeta's broad path of destruction through Southeast Louisiana will likely shape polling locations because of widespread power outages forcing many of the traditional places out of service.
In New Orleans, 54 of the city's 120 polling places -- 45% -- are without power Friday, with restoration expected to take more than a week for some hard-hit areas.
"Most are schools, and schools are a priority with their power restored," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Friday morning at a press conference. "I'm very confident that we will make sure voters will be able to express themselves come Tuesday."
Since Wednesday night, tens of thousands of Entergy customers in New Orleans have had power restored. But more than 90,000 remained in the dark as of noon Friday.
But with much of Entergy's damage assessment done and linemen beginning on-the-ground work in earnest, Cantrell was optimistic that some if not most of the polling locations around the city would be in their usual spots Tuesday.
"The hope is that power will be restored to the current polling sites, even if generators are needed," she said.
In neighboring Jefferson Parish, the situation is bleaker, with more than 150,000 still without power Friday and a focus on critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment facilities over the weekend.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said polling locations were still up in the air four days out from election day.
"It is too early to say which polling places are not going to be in service on Tuesday, but those decisions are going to be made very quickly," Edwards said. "What we anticipate happening is that power is going to be restored rapidly today, but I can't tell you that 100% of that is going to be restored by Tuesday."
He said that the goal in Jefferson Parish wasn't to restore power to as many polling places as possible ahead of Nov. 3, but instead to determine which ones would definitely be out of service then and figure out a replacement location ahead of time.
"The goal here is to identify those polling locations as soon as possible that are not going to be able to be in service on Tuesday, so that we have an opportunity to have an alternate location selected, have the machines and the poll workers prepared to go there, but also to try to communicate with the voters who vote at that precinct … where the new location is so that they can vote there instead," Edwards said.
In both Orleans and Jefferson parishes, assessments are continuing Friday and Saturday, and voters will likely have a clearer picture by Sunday or Monday about where they can go for in-person voting.
"We don't have a lot of time between now and Tuesday, but we don't have final information," Edwards said.
But he cautioned that voters should be patient and ready for some issues when they cast their ballots:
"I am fairly confident there will be voters on Tuesday who will not be able to vote in their normal polling location."
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