Across North Carolina, county election officials are busy answering questions from citizens and making sure all equipment is running properly. Beaufort County Board of Elections Director Kellie Hopkins has been involved in North Carolina elections for 28 years. She’s learned firsthand that you can’t procrastinate. “Election preparation started months ago,” Hopkins said in a Wednesday briefing on election procedures hosted by Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan civic education organization. Hopkins’ staff is busy this week doing extensive logic and accuracy testing of the county’s voting machines and tabulators. Ahead of early in-person voting that begins Oct. 15, her team is getting laptops and other electronics ready to be deployed to the precincts. The only problem so far was a single malfunctioning screen, Hopkins said. It was easily swapped out with a back-up.
Cyber worries and a paper trail Beaufort County Board of Elections Director Kellie Hopkins (Photo: Screenshot) Still, Hopkins knows local residents are anxious about the upcoming midterms. Polling by Catawba College finds that while North Carolinians continue to trust their local elections, they are more skeptical about election outcomes across the country. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, more commonly known as CISA, was established in 2018 to help provide security guidance during elections. The agency has seen its workforce and budget drastically reduced during the second Trump administration. A plan released in late September offering election security assistance was viewed as arriving too late to be useful in some states. Upcoming election dates: Oct. 9: Voter registration deadline. Oct. 15: In-person early voting begins; same-day registration available. Vote Early in Person. Oct. 20: Absentee ballot request deadline Oct. 31: In-person early voting ends (3 p.m.). Nov. 3: Election Day. Source: NC State Board of Elections Hopkins said while CISA works more closely with the State Board of Elections than county officials, she’s confident the safeguards already in place would prevent any security vulnerabilities. “Our voting equipment is never hooked up to the internet. Our tabulating system where we bring all that information together is never hooked up to the internet,” said Hopkins. Hopkins said if a cyberattack were to occur, all counties in North Carolina have a paper backup of election results and their voter registration database. “The one word that comes to mind is redundancies,” said Tim Tsujii, elections director for the Forsyth County Board of Elections. “I can certainly speak for all the counties: there are redundancies in place because of the best practices and guidelines shared by the State Board of Elections.”
Training includes how to handle ICE Hopkins said civic groups in her county have had more questions in recent weeks about how they might handle the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at polling sites. “We have not had any feedback from the federal government, but I do know that if that happens, we need to alert the State Board of Elections immediately,” said Hopkins. “In North Carolina, the chief judge of each precinct is the law enforcement official there. So, we do have plans in place.” In Forsyth County, Tsujii said his office had just one inquiry since last year from the federal government seeking voter registration information on a particular voter. Tim Tsujii, elections director for the Forsyth County Board of Elections (Photo: Screenshot) “The guidance from the State Board of Elections was to treat [the inquiry] like a public records request,” he said. “That was really the extent of any communications that I’ve received from any of the federal agencies.” Both Hopkins and Tsujii said if ICE agents or federal officials show up on Election Day, poll workers will be prepared. “Here in Forsyth County, we are incorporating in our poll worker training that the chief jud
