North Carolina election results should come faster, voter data should be better maintained, and the systems that organize votes should be more secure, according to state officials who are working to upgrade the state’s election technology.
State Auditor Dave Boliek, whose office oversees state election administration, is prioritizing the update at a time when some voters have lost faith in election integrity.
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“[The] only goal in terms of running elections is to make it easy to vote, make it hard to cheat, and accurately tabulate the votes across the state of North Carolina,” Boliek said.
North Carolina’s Statewide Elections Information Management System (SEIMS) dates back to 1998. It has evolved into a tangle of technology, consisting of modern, web-based applications and legacy systems that are written in unsupported programming languages that pose security risks, and are difficult to manage and update.
They are “on the verge of malfunctioning due to various updates to operating and other system resources,” the state said in describing the upgrade to potential contractors.
Lawmakers passed a spending package last year that included $15 million for the State Board of Elections to use for upgrades to the system, including improvements to campaign finance software.
Election technology has come under scrutiny from some voters in recent years, fueled in part by President Donald Trump’s disproven claims about voter fraud during the 2020 election.
In 2024, nearly one in every three North Carolina voters had little to no faith in the accuracy of election results, according to a WRAL News poll. Mistrust was highest among Trump supporters, even though audits of past election results haven’t found widespread voter fraud.
A recent North Carolina lawsuit — brought by Republican Jefferson Griffin, who challenged a 2024 race for a state Supreme Court seat — put a brighter spotlight on election data management, though.
Griffin challenged the validity of thousands of voters, saying they had errant or incorrect information on file with the state. Griffin lost that challenge and the race, but his effort prompted the state to seek to verify the identity of thousands of North Carolina voters.
The tech upgrade also comes as Democrats question whether elections can be administered impartially following the transfer of election control from the Democratic governor’s office to the Republican state auditor — a move enabled by the Republican-led state legislature.
A 2024 law that shifted election administration to the auditor is being challenged by Gov. Josh Stein, who says the transfer of power was unconstitutional. The shift has enabled Boliek to select a GOP majority on the state board of elections, which determines where, when and how North Carolinians can vote.
Boliek has sought to reassure voters that his office can be impartial.
“I was elected in a partisan election,” Boliek told WRAL. “But in completing the job, I represent and work on behalf of all North Carolinians, regardless of their political party. And when it comes to voting, voting is sacred in this country. It is sacred in this state.”
To that end, Boliek last week announced the creation of a bipartisan commission that will help oversee the modernization effort to ensure a fair election.
The Modernization of Election Data Systems commission is made up of 22 members: professional election staffers, political appointees and academics, who are tasked with helping fix the technology that supports North Carolina’s elections.
Phase one of the modernization effort — including requesting proposals from vendors and creating the commission — is complete. The second phase will take several years.
He plans incremental modernization of the current system to keep it operational in the meantime. His main goal for the next year is to make campaign finance reporting easier, which he said is good for both parties. The state is still using the software from 1998 that relies on manual forms.
But in the meantime, Boliek reassures that the current system is in good shape to produce accurate results and a fair and balanced election.
Boliek said the $15 million from the General Assembly is not enough to completely modernize this system and that the project likely will need more money from legislators.
Boliek also wants the commission to look at the cost of polling locations. Costs to run an early voting location and to run a precinct site add up.
"Those are real-life costs that really are taxed to the county counties [to] … pay for early voting sites and for precinct sites, and sometimes they can be expensive, and we want it to be easy to vote," Boliek said.