RALEIGH, N.C. — Karen Brinson Bell leads a state agency that's undergoing substantial change.
"It's more responsibility," she said.
Since 2019, Brinson Bell has served as executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections. She's requesting a $2 million a year increase in funding from the General Assembly.
"It's really small, by comparison to other agencies and the overall state budget," she said.
In addition, the agency is requesting a $13 million capital investment to update election management software to replace the current system which dates back to 1998.
"So it's time to modernize. We didn't even have smartphones in 1998. So you can imagine that it looks more like Atari than it does any kind of modern technology," she said.
The North Carolina Board of Elections is also undergoing significant turnover at county election offices.
"We've had 47 changes in county election director. So nearly half. And that is huge, some of this is substantial institutional knowledge that we're losing," she said.
Susie Jordan is the new Iredell County elections director, on the job since 2021. Like many parts of North Carolina, her county is going through growing pains.
"We are growing at a rate of registered voters anywhere from 5-8%. We are over 136,000 registered voters. And so our greatest need right now is we are having difficulty finding polling locations within our precincts," Jordan said.
Election workers have also come under fire in recent years for claims of widespread election fraud.
"Our profession has been under attack, we are genuinely public servants who want to ensure that every voter can exercise their right to vote," Brinson Bell said.
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