Hayes reflects on 1st year leading NC elections board

Marking his first year as executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), Sam Hayes says the agency has strengthened election security, cleaned up voter rolls, and advanced modernization efforts aimed at improving confidence in the state’s voting system.

In an exclusive interview with Carolina Journal, he said he had not planned to take over the position from then executive director Karen Brinson Bell, as he was very happy being the general counsel for House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, and before that, general counsel and acting chief of staff for former House Speaker Tim Moore. But, he said, he has been proud of the progress he and his staff have made on priorities he set since taking office on May 15, 2025.

bringing state into compliance with hava

One of those efforts was bringing the state into compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

“Well, when we first took office, when I first came in, I said that I was going to bring North Carolina into compliance with federal law and that meant going back and collecting the information the state board had not collected on voter registrations for a decade, complying with HAVA, the Help America Vote Act,” Hayes told CJ. “We drew a federal lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice. Luckily, we were able to settle that lawsuit very quickly because they were only asking for the things that I was already planning to do, which is to reach out to all of those voters to collect that information again to bring us in compliance with the law, so that was the very first thing right over the gate.”

Another one of his initiatives, the Registration Repair Project, was connected with this effort to comply with HAVA. The project took effect in 2004 and has repaired about 30% of voter registrations, or about 36,000, since taking effect in July.

Using SAVe database finds 34,000 deceased voters on voter rolls

There has also been some controversy surrounding the state election board’s use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. It is administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is used by federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local government agencies to verify the immigration status and US citizenship of applicants seeking benefits, such as Medicaid or licenses.

The board voted 3-2 in November to use it to help identify non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. They also voted unanimously in December to hold a public comment period and meeting on proposed permanent rules for non-citizen list maintenance.

Over 15,000 comments were received. The rules were approved by a vote of 3-2 last month, but not before a heated debate about them and the use of the SAVE database, including from one member of the public and two board members.

But, after the state board submitted 7,397,734 voter records to the SAVE database, something unexpected was found: 34,000 deceased voters on the voter rolls, something that Hayes was not expecting.

“Now there are some ancillary benefits, finding duplicates, for instance, and finding deceased voters, and that’s in fact what we found — 34,000 deceased individuals on our voter rolls,” Hayes said. “And so we are going about the process now of verifying that. It’s only the beginning of the process, nowhere near the end. Now, there’s a certain amount of due diligence that has to take place on our part to verify that information, and then we’ll begin the work of removing those deceased voters from the rolls.”

Hayes stressed that the United States Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution, both clearly state that a person must be a citizen of the US and 18 years old to vote. He said it’s the responsibility of the state board to check to make sure that only citizens are on the voter rolls and entitled to vote because every foreign national non-citizen on the rolls who votes cancels out a vote of legitimate person who was entitled to that vote.

As far as the controversy surrounding the SAVE system, he told CJ that they are using the tools at their disposal, which are being used by 26 or more states that have agreements to use the system to verify voter registration records.

“For folks who say, oh, we looked at this a decade ago, and it wasn’t useful, well, a lot has changed,” Hayes said. “Technology has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and the system was not set up to accept just the last four of the Social Security number, which is all we collect at the State Board of Elections. So they have configured it so that it can now accommodate that, and we decided to avail ourselves of it and see what we could find. Again, it’s the beginning of the process; it is not the end.”

He also said that anyone flagged as possibly being a non-citizen will be given every due process notice and opportunity to be heard, and that no one is automatically removed from the voter rolls because of what is found.

modernization of election systems

Modernizing election systems was another top priority for Hayes in his first year in office.

North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek, who gained administrative oversight of the board and the ability to make election board appointments through a provision in Senate Bill 382, announced the joint initiative with Hayes last year and, in February, launched a new bipartisan, 22-member Modernization of Election Data Systems (MEDS) Commission to help bring North Carolina’s election management system up to date.

The Statewide Elections Information Management System (SEIMS) was initially developed in 1998 and is the central elections management system that coordinates statewide elections processes, voter registration, voter roll list maintenance, and reporting of election results. It is used daily by the State Board and the 100 county boards of elections.

In addition, the campaign finance reporting software was developed by NCSBE in the early 2000s. The NCSBE maintains both systems, while the auditor’s office directs and supervises all NCSBE budgeting functions.

Hayes told CJ that there has been progress on both efforts, including the selection of ReFrame Solutions as the winning vendor to modernize SEIMS. He said they are in the process of requesting appropriations from the General Assembly to overhaul the system, which they hope to complete by January 2028, ahead of the general election that includes the race for the country’s next president.

He said it will be updated with security features powered by artificial intelligence to aid voter list maintenance efforts.

“We want it to be a model for this country,” Hayes said.

Until then, modules will be coming out on a rolling basis to keep the system running.

They are also hoping to launch the new campaign finance software system by summer 2027.

restructuring the agency

Hayes has also restructured the agency, including a new senior leadership team, general counsel, director of elections administration, director of campaign finance, and the Division of Election Security and Enforcement, a new division, headed by former federal investigator Ron Herring, which will deal with voter fraud and security.

He credits his team, and all 100 county election board directors, boards, and staff, who he says are the ones on the ground conducting the elections, including the primary this past March, with great success.

future focused on election integrity and security

As for the future of elections in North Carolina, Hayes said they are very focused on election integrity and security.

“We want to make it easy to vote, hard to cheat, and that is a big priority of my administration,” he told CJ. “And we are looking to deploy all of the tools at our disposal. And we are always looking for new solutions, whether it’s the SAVE database or working with other states, which we do on a regular basis. We are always looking for best practices, what other states are doing, what they’re doing well, and what we can use here.”

“Hayes reflects on 1st year leading NC elections board” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.