NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A county hire will be helping assist the elections board in the coming months as the search for a new director is underway.
READ MORE: ‘Effective immediately’: NHC elections director retires following year of budget, voting conflicts
At Tuesday’s meeting, after a closed session to discuss personnel matters, the five-member New Hanover County Board of Elections — Republican-led as of July this year — voted down party lines to appoint Assistant County Manager Lisa Wurtzbacher as special assistant to the county BOE. Wurtzbacher will have the duties of the former executive director, Rae Hunter-Havens who announced after last week’s board meeting she would retire, “effective immediately,” due to health concerns.
The vote was 3-2, with Democrats Derrick Miller and Jim Battle Morgan Jr. against the proposal. Port City Daily reached out to all board members about their votes, but only Miller and Chair Jamie Getty responded by press; both said they were unable to answer due to a busy Wednesday schedule.
The board of elections is statutorily a separate entity from New Hanover County government, though Wurtzbacher will be an employee for both.
Per the elections board’s adopted resolution, the “appointee shall be deemed to be staff of the New Hanover Department of Elections and subject to the exclusive authority and supervision of the New Hanover Board of Elections for all election-related duties and functions, and the appointee’s role shall expire upon the appointment of an election director for New Hanover County.”
When asking New Hanover County Board of Elections Interim Deputy Director Jessica O’Neill, Elections Education and Communications Coordinator Kristen Daley and county spokesperson Alex Riley whose idea it was to nominate Wurtzbacher, Riley cited state privacy laws covering personnel.
But according to the county, Wurtzbacher’s appointment is in line with the expectations of her “current portfolio.” A former chief financial officer for the county for a decade, Wurtzbacher became assistant county manager in 2022 and helps oversee the functioning of the board of elections, community justice services, parks and gardens, Soil and Water Conservation District, the Cape Fear Museum, NC Cooperative Extension and Arboretum, public library, and tax department.
Her appointment comes after the county announced last week it would help manage the transition to the elections board’s new executive director. The county clarified in a release the elections board retains statutory authority over all election decisions and vowed to ensure November’s election will be “fair, secure, and uninterrupted” and meet the “highest standards of accuracy, transparency, and public trust.”
One of PCD’s questions to the elections board was whether the vote for the county assistant manager posed a conflict of interest in their view, seeing as the BOE and county are considered separate entities.
The state auditor chooses the chair of the county boards — once decided by the governor, but it changed last year as part of Senate Bill 382, to shift power away from Gov. Josh Stein and effectively changed all 100 county boards statewide to Republican-leaning. The state chairs of the Democratic and GOP parties choose two members each to make up the remainder of each county board.
Yet, New Hanover County funds the elections budget.
Further complicating matters, the entities have been at odds over the last year, with the county paying $30,000 for an audit of the BOE after County Manager Chris Coudriet took issue with Hunter-Havens and the board’s decision to delay counting absentee ballots received prior to the Nov. 4 Election Day, as required by state law. Nearly 2,000 mail-in ballots remained for tabulation after Election Day, the board saying they were acting under state guidance. The BOE refused to participate in the county’s audit, even questioning its authority to conduct it.
The two also have been back-and-forth over budget enhancements Hunter-Havens claimed would cause problems of election integrity if not awarded. The county maintains it has increased the BOE’s budget by more than $344,000 from last year.
State BOE spokesperson Patrick Gannon told PCD “an interim director [or in this case a special assistant to the BOE] is not the same as a statutorily-appointed director, but simply a county employee designated to administratively maintain operations during the new director recruitment and hiring process.”
Currently, the timeline in which a new director will be suggested by the New Hanover County Board of Elections remains ambiguous.
Though 2025 is a municipal election year and not a county one, 2026 will see two county commissioner seats up for grabs. A primary election will take place as of now for at least the Democratic Party ticket, as four candidates already have announced they’re running before filing officially opens in December. It’s unknown whether a primary will be required for the commissioners’ Republican Party ticket.
Thus, it’s unclear if Wurtzbacher will be in the special assistant position amid the March 3 primary polls opening. Hunter-Havens also was contracted by the county for almost $70,000 to remain in a consultative capacity upon request through April 1, 2026.
The process to hire a new director includes the board of elections vetting candidates and sending over their suggestions to the state board executive director. In this case, it’s Sam Hayes, who replaced Karen Brinson Bell in May after her term expired. A former general counsel for North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall (R), Hayes is required to issue a letter of appointment within 10 days of the county board nomination, “unless there is good cause to decline,” Riley explained.
“The timeline [of a new director starting] depends on when the nomination is submitted and the State Board’s review,” the county spokesperson added.
New Hanover County BOE members didn’t address this upon PCD inquiring when they expect, or at least hope, to have someone in place.
However, should the local county board not be able to come to an agreement on a nomination, Hayes will assign an acting director until a nomination can be firmed up.
According to state law, the director: cannot be a candidate, hold office in a political party or committee; isn’t a candidate’s campaign or finance chairman or serves on a committee; hasn’t been removed from the State BOE following a public hearing; isn’t a spouse, child, parent, sister or brother of a county board of elections member; and must not have a felony conviction.
[Ed. note: The piece was updated to properly reflect Karen Brinson Bell’s name; PCD regrets the error.]
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