NEW HANOVER COUNTY — After multiple claims came forward during election season that the New Hanover County Board of Elections didn’t have adequate funding, the BOE has requested the county provide almost $75,000 to cover unexpected employment costs incurred earlier this fall.
READ MORE: New Hanover County approves up to $30,000 for law firm to review local elections board’s operations
Port City Daily obtained December emails between county staff and BOE Director Rae Hunter-Havens explaining the need for additional funds, which were requested and approved in September.
“To ensure we had adequate support to execute all critical tasks, we had to increase the number of temporary employees that we contracted through ExpressEmployment,” Hunter-Havens wrote in an email to Chief Financial Officer Eric Credle.
The BOE had 15 to 19 additional employees assisting and each was paid at $25.27 per hour, a higher rate than the BOE’s election officials due to ExpressEmployment’s terms. They were tasked with administering absentee ballot reviews and directing traffic during early voting, among other assistance.
In an email to PCD on Thursday, Hunter-Havens said “the county was aware that there would be an increase in funds needed for contracted services during the election.” She added some of the positions were added at the request and direction of the county for safety and access purposes.”
Hunter-Havens warned the BOE might exceed its budget at a meeting on Nov. 12, but did not reveal the details at that time.
The BOE has come under intense scrutiny, now through an ongoing county-sanctioned review of the BOE, after Hunter-Havens revealed the BOE did not count all absentee ballots received prior to Election Day on Nov. 4, as seemingly required by state law. Nearly 2,000 mail-in ballots remained for tabulation after Election Day.
The situation strained the relationship between County Manager Chris Coudriet, who questioned the board’s decision, and the BOE, who claimed they were advised to delay the count by the State Board of Elections. The state has denied providing this advice.
The county requested a review and paid $30,000 to Parker Poe Law Firm to analyze the election offices’ financial needs, practices, and communication — though Coudriet was clear the move was not an audit of the 2024 election itself. The process includes analyzing the BOE’s policies and procedures compared to statutory requirements and best practices, while also interviewing the board and elections staff. However, the BOE has refused to cooperate with the audit, questioning the authority of county staff — beholden to elected candidates — to call for an audit of the independent board of elections.
The BOE acts similarly to the board of education; the county contributes funding, but does not govern over the BOE, which is beholden to state law and guidance set forth by the State Board of Elections.
In another dispute over the state board’s advice, Hunter-Havens said the State Board of Elections and general counsel told her it informed Coudriet his audit was “beyond the scope of the county’s authority.” Coudriet reports being told the audit was “a reasonable action to take.”
Hunter-Havens told PCD Thursday that the BOE’s stance on the audit remains the same. County spokesperson Alex Riley told PCD the audit is more difficult without their cooperation, but the attorneys “can review internal communications, BOE meeting materials, listen to their meetings, as well as interview county personnel that attend those meetings and can review what is in the public arena.”
Nonetheless, the audit is expected to complete its review by the end of the month, according to the county.
Despite the appearance of law-breaking in the days following the election, some community members — including Democratic Party Chair Jill Hopman, former BOE Chair Derrick Bowens and North Carolina NAACP President Deborah Dicks Maxwell — defended the board’s hard work administering the election and claimed they needed more funding. BOE chair Derrick Miller concurred.
The county defended against these assertions, pointing to its budget increases to the BOE in the last two fiscal years and its practice of complying with additional requests outside of approved budgets. The overage also contradicts Hunter-Havens’ statements in the spring, where she told county there would be no issues with staffing for the entire length of early voting; additional staff were not requested for the current fiscal year, despite presidential election years historically yielding more voters.
However, Hunter-Havens’ email to the county portrayed a need for staff that could not have been foreseen in the spring. She pointed to three reasons, two of which stem from the North Carolina Supreme Court decision involving the new We the People Party. The court decided to delay absentee ballot distribution while it decided if the party, founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before he abdicated to support Donald Trump’s presidential bid, would be allowed on the ballot. The state board voted to not allow his name from being removed, due to 2.9 million ballots already in the process of being printed at county boards statewide. Yet, Kennedy sued and the court voted 4-3 to remove his name, in line with his withdrawal request.
The New Hanover County BOE had printed 3,530 ballots with RFK Jr.’s name on them, per Hunter-Havens’ email, which all had to be reprinted for distribution on Sept. 30, two-and-a-half weeks later than normal.
“The shortened absentee voting period increased the volume of outgoing ballot packets that had to be assembled each day for the remainder of the absentee voting period since the submission rates of absentee requests began to increase once we began to mail out absentee ballots,” Hunter-Havens wrote.
The shortened window to return ballots, plus the BOE’s decision to increase the number of ballots they manually review at absentee meetings, increased the length of the board’s meetings. As a result, Hunter-Havens said the additional help was tasked with sorting ballot envelopes, reviewing voter information, and maintaining organization to increase efficiency at each absentee review meeting.
In total, the BOE sent out 13,188 absentee ballots in 6 weeks, excluding the 3,530 ballots that were reprinted and ballots that were spoiled and reissued.
The third reason for the needed increase in employees was the doubling of curbside voting during the early voting period. Hunter-Havens said curbside voters made up 4.3% of those who cast ballots in the 2020 early voting period; the average 2024 rate was 8.72%. As a result, five additional temp employees were stationed at the Senior Resource Center and two more at the Northeast Library — the two sites with the highest demand — to help with traffic flow and parking.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
