North Carolina elections chief wants senator to take back comment about vote manipulation

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina State Board of Elections’ top administrator asked a powerful legislator on Thursday to retract a comment that he made suggesting this month’s results were being manipulated, saying it could lead to threats against local election workers.

“You are a top leader of our state government. What you say matters,” Karen Brinson Bell, the board’s executive director, wrote state Senate leader Phil Berger in response to his words from Wednesday. “When you tell your fellow citizens that an election is being conducted fraudulently, they listen.”

Berger, a Republican, was speaking to reporters following the final passage of a bill that in part would shift next year the authority to appoint the State Board of Elections from the governor to the state auditor. The new governor in 2025 will remain a Democrat in Josh Stein, while the next auditor will be a Republican. Changes also would likely filter down to county elections boards.

Republicans have expressed frustration about a state Supreme Court race where GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin was leading on election night. But a 10,000-vote deficit for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs was eliminated as county boards added qualifying provisional and absentee ballots to the totals. Griffin, now trailing, asked for a recount now underway and has filed protests.

Without mentioning the court race by name or specifics of electoral influence, Berger told reporters that “we’re seeing played out at this point another episode of ‘Count Until Somebody You Want to Win Wins.’”

In the letter, first reported by North Carolina Public Radio, Brinson Bell wrote that Berger’s accusation “has absolutely no basis in fact,” and that county boards, where hundreds of Democrats and Republicans serve, “were duty-bound to count eligible provisional and absentee ballots” before last Friday’s canvass. Some did not finish their work until this week.

The legislation also would move up the deadlines so that election officials finish counting outstanding ballots more quickly.

Berger’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Brinson Bell’s letter — an unusual communication by an agency head to one of the state’s most influential politicians.

Brinson Bell told Berger that “baseless accusations of wrongdoing” over the 2020 elections led election administrators to leave their profession and bring emotional stress, too.

“I fear for the people running elections in this state, including in your own community, that some misguided people will conclude from your statements that actions must be taken, perhaps through the use of threats or violence,” Brinson Bell said.

The state board and county boards, while bipartisan, are controlled by Democrats. A Democratic state board first hired Brinson Bell for the job in 2019. Her future at the post may be jeopardized should the bill moving state board appointing power to Republican Auditor Dave Boliek be enacted and avoids being struck down by courts. Republican legislators have previously expressed displeasure at some of Brinson Bell’s actions.

Berger said Wednesday that he wants a board that “functionally operates in a way that is just counting the votes, not pulling for one side or the other.”

Logistically, elections went relatively well in the battleground state won by Republican Donald Trump, despite disruptions caused by Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding. The General Assembly passed legislation providing flexibility to 25 western counties affected most by the storm, leading to altered early-vote sites and schedules. A handful of Election Day precincts set up shop in tents.