WILMINGTON — The New Hanover County Board of Elections will return to similar sites it used in previous years, despite alleged staffing challenges. The move comes after significant criticism from the public and community leaders on the board’s initial one-site-only plan.
READ MORE: New NHC elections board cuts early voting sites down to 1
The board will operate early voting Oct. 16 out of the Northeast Library for the full 17 days of voting. However, it will open the Senior Resource Center, Carolina Beach Town Hall and CFCC’s McLeod Building starting the second weekend of October — Oct. 25. All locations will operate during the same hours, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The suggestion on hours was made by former BOE chair Derrick Miller.
The three sites aside from the Northeast Library were not adopted in the board’s first voting plan, unanimously approved on July 22. After voter accessibility concerns were raised from the public and requests for additional sites from both Carolina Beach council and the Wilmington City Council, a meeting was called for Aug. 6 to amend the plan before the state’s Aug. 8 deadline.
BOE member John Lyon thanked the public for alerting the city to their oversight and sharing their concerns.
“There was nothing nefarious by the bipartisan group up here as we move [the plan] again,” Lyon said. “It was like that based on the information we have — information changed. That’s why we’re here tonight.”
The new plan was adopted unanimously, though Lyon did have concerns over being able to staff additional sites.
“I don’t want anything to come across as being voter suppression; I want folks to realize, right now, I’m looking at available resources,” Lyon said.
Though Hunter-Havens previously indicated the BOE wouldn’t be able to accomplish covering the costs of more than one site at a June meeting, the board and director didn’t indicate anything of the sort on Wednesday. Port City Daily asked the director to provide the total costs for running the election compared to the BOE’s current operating budget but didn’t get a response by press.
Hunter-Havens and her deputy, Caroline Dawkins, did raise the issue of staff availability, however.
“I would say we’re probably going to wear out our tried-and-true election officials before we get to Election Day, which presents us with challenges when we’re talking about trying to staff 27 to 29 polling places, and that’s my concern,” Dawkins said.
Election workers, which Hunter-Havens noted tend to be older, are broken into two shifts for early voting — open to noon and noon to close. Hunter-Havens said running two shifts per day for the same number of days and hours as the main site (which had statutorily mandated hours and days) would present “numerous operational challenges.” Thus, the decision was made to diverge from the 2021 plan and reduce days and hours for the additional polling sites.
Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens has maintained on multiple occasions that she must remove around $261,000 from the BOE’s budget.
Though mandated by the county, the reduction Hunter-Havens refers to is to the BOE’s planned budget, but the county commissioners surprised most everyone in June when it voted for a budget requiring $30.6 million in operating cuts. The county increased the BOE’s budget $344,000 since last year and $420,000 compared to 2023.
Additionally, the governments involved in municipal elections are required to reimburse the BOE for expenses of running that election for them. So, when looking at an entire fiscal year, the cost of running the elections is a “net wash,” to use the county’s term.
Hunter-Havens has pushed back on this bookkeeping term and has issued a convoluted explanation of how the exchange isn’t awash. She questioned this term in an email exchange with the county’s chief financial officer, Eric Credle.
“I have spoken with our legal counsel, Mark Payne, and he has requested that I confer with you about your statement that municipal expenses are a “net wash to the budget,” Hunter-Havens wrote on July 31. “Can you confirm that those expenses associated with the cost of conducting a municipal election, which are reimbursed by the municipalities, should NOT count in the Board of Elections actual expenses?”
Credle said they are actual expenses and included in the $344,070 increase to the BOE’s budget this fiscal year, though the municipality reimbursements are included in the BOE’s revenue, thus canceling each other out.
“For example, if Carolina Beach is not one of the early voting sites that is selected, the avoided cost of $6,998 would result in $6,998 in lower expenses for the department and fee revenue would also be $6,998 lower,” Credle wrote. “So whether the site is operated or not, the net financial impact to the county is zero/a wash.
While this is true when looking at the year overall, the BOE has to have enough money to front the costs of the elections until reimbursement, usually in the spring, when the BOE is also getting the primary election up and running.
Public criticism targeted the county commissioners’ budget decision as the preceding event to the BOE’s one-site decision. Commissioners have resisted this characterization, while also pointing to the BOE’s new, $5.6-million building that the BOE isn’t using as a polling site.
“I think we all kind of agree that the Northeast Public Library was more conducive overall, space-wise, than our location here,” Lyon said. At the July 22 meeting, Hunter-Havens did say the Northeast Library, the BOE’s former headquarters, had more space for polling and parking.
It also has more space for public meetings, apparently. The BOE building has a capacity of only 15 people for public meetings, thus leaving around a dozen people out in the hall at Wednesday’s meeting, including reporters from Port City Daily, WECT and WWAY.
BOE chair Jamie Getty said she thought it too late to change from the Northeast Library to the BOE headquarters now, but noted she would like to see them use the BOE office in future elections.
As for the CFCC site change, the college’s Health Sciences Building used previously was not available, though the option popped up for the BOE to use the Skyline Center. Multiple BOE members expressed the desire to use Skyline, the City of Wilmington’s headquarters, going into Wednesday’s meeting.
“I thought that seemed ideal to me at first blush,” Miller said. “But it sounds to me like ultimately, the McLeod Building is a superior site, and it’s superior to what we had been using previously downtown as well.”
The decision came down to a priority for better physical access for staff and voters, the McLeod Building winning out for more direct access for voters, particularly those voting curbside. Hunter-Havens said they used a drive-thru method at the Northeast Library, but it was unclear if that would be possible at the Skyline without impeding traffic and fire lanes. If not, voters would have to take up parking spaces.
Additionally, the Skyline Center would have a longer walk for election workers to cars from the actual voting site, increasing their fatigue. The Skyline Center offers a larger voter “enclosure,” as it’s called, compared to the McLeod Building, which Lyon said could benefit them in larger elections. He pointed to Miller’s statements earlier in the meeting about consistency in polling locations.
Miller said: “The importance of consistency is always better when voters can expect the same polling location year over year.”
Still, the board could return to the Skyline Center if it so chooses as early as the spring primaries.
Hunter-Havens said she is also expecting CFCC to allow electioneering at the McLeod Building, potentially with tents and tables, despite the college’s policy against those structures — the policy became a problem in the 2023 election.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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