NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The New Hanover County Board of Elections has begun the process of removing its director, according to sources close to the board.
The board met in a closed session Monday night to discuss a personnel matter, though previous reporting from Port City Daily and WHQR indicated it was to discuss the job performance and claims — including bullying, retaliation and email tampering — made by Director DeNay Harris.
READ MORE: ‘Between the offices’: Relationship between NHC election director and county manager on shaky ground
ALSO: Investigation report: No evidence of NHC election director’s email-tampering claims
The board met in closed session for nearly three hours. Because its decision on Harris is a personnel matter, the board did not disclose any action taken during the closed session.
However, a source close to the matter told Port City Daily on background the board is planning on submitting a petition to remove Harris as director to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Unless the state board decides to intervene and conduct a hearing, its executive director, Sam Hayes, will have final say on Harris’ removal. This process could take up to 55 days after the state receives the petition and notifies Harris, who will be given a chance to respond to the petition before the final decision is made.
Until then, Harris will remain on paid administrative leave; her annual salary is $115,000.
Port City Daily reached out to Harris for comment on the board’s proceedings; she told the outlet she had not received any word on her job status but did not comment further on the petition by press. Before the meeting Monday, Harris told Port City Daily she was retaining legal counsel.
Harris started in the role on Feb. 3, taking over from the county manager’s executive aide Crystal Whittaker, who was appointed interim director in December 2025. Before that Assistant County Manager Lisa Wurtzbacher was appointed special assistant to the board of elections and helped run the municipal election following the sudden retirement of former director Rae Hunter-Havens in October 2025.
Wurtzbacher and Whittaker are county employees and thus, their appointment blurred the lines between the statutory separation of the board of elections, which answers to the state board, and county staff, who answer to commissioners. However, the commissioners approve the annual budget of the board of elections and paid for the board’s new elections building.
As previously reported by Port City Daily and WHQR, the director accused the two women of “micromanaging” her and when she emailed the State Board of Elections her concerns, the relationship with the county manager, Chris Coudriet and board of elections began to sour. In a heated email exchange between Coudriet and Harris on March 4, Coudriet told Harris he “would be the judge on what level of county resources, to include facilities, that we now choose to extend to you.”
Harris then filed an HR complaint and said her email was being monitored, manipulated and erased. She would later claim it was being done by the county in an effort to undermine her position.
However, the preliminary results of a third-party audit on Harris’ computer and Microsoft account turned up no evidence of outside tampering.
With Harris on administrative leave, Getty said the board of elections staff will continue to run the elections office. Miller told Port City Daily last week that the return of Wurtzbacher and Whittaker to their BOE roles was “unlikely” and Getty gave no indication they would be reinstated on Monday.
It is unclear if any current board of elections employee will be named interim director; four of the office’s seven employees have been at their positions for less than a year.
The office is also currently without a deputy director after the interim deputy, Jessica O’Neill, resigned in January under Whittaker and Wurtzbacher’s leadership. After failing to garner applications by March 10, the position remains “open until filled.”
While the next election isn’t until November, the board of elections staff and board will need to oversee a new budget for the office to take effect July 1. Under Wurtbacher and Whittaker’s leadership, the board submitted a budget request for a software upgrade and one additional position — two less than requested, and ultimately rejected, in the 2025 budget cycle.
The county commissioners’ next budget session, where department enhancement requests will be reviewed, is April 1.
Jill Hopman, New Hanover County Democratic Party chair, took to Facebook after the meeting, though she noted a full statement would come later.
“The only thing I have ever cared about is that our elections are run fairly and freely (which requires them to be properly funded and fully staffed),” she wrote. “I do not think this situation is salvageable, so I understand why the Board initiated this process. But the County Manager’s Office has done literally nothing but torture the Board of Elections for the past six years I’ve been back in Wilmington. And it is insulting to the staff who successfully ran those elections to imply otherwise.”
Port City Daily also reached out to GOP chair John Hinnant, who provided the following: “Her multiple absences from work are deeply concerning to me. Leadership requires accountability, and one cannot hold themselves accountable. To do that, you have to show up and speak to the concerns & criticisms others have of you.”
[Ed. Note: A previous version of this article stated the budget session is scheduled for April 2; it is scheduled for April 1. PCD regrets the error.]
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