Editor’s note: More than 10,000 officials across the country run U.S. elections. This interview is part of a series highlighting the election heroes who are the faces of democracy.
Karen Brinson Bell, a Democrat and native of North Carolina, is the former executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, serving from June 2019 to May 2025. As the state’s chief election official, she was responsible for overseeing election administration for more than 7.5 million registered voters across 100 counties in North Carolina. During her tenure, she guided the state through 20 elections, including the 2024 presidential election held in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, as well as the 2020 presidential election during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under her leadership, North Carolina gained national and state recognition, earning four Clearinghouse Awards from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, two national Election Center awards, and the inaugural Partnership Award from the North Carolina Local Government Information Systems Association.
Brinson Bell began her career in election administration in 2006 as a district elections technician with the state board, training county staff and supporting 12 counties in western North Carolina. She later served as the election director for Transylvania County just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, before going on to work for elections-focused software firm EasyVote Solutions and helping establish the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center in 2016.
Brinson Bell is now the co-founder and principal of Advance Elections LLC, where she works directly with election jurisdictions across the country to address emerging challenges to election administration and security. She also serves on the advisory board for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Elections; is a member of the Conference on Election Science, Reform and Administration Steering Committee; and sits on the Institute for Election Administration Research and Practice Symposium Panel.
Since 2022, Brinson Bell has been part of Issue One’s Faces of Democracy campaign, advocating for protections for election workers and for regular, predictable, and sufficient federal funding of elections.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Issue One: How did you end up in the field of election administration?
Karen Brinson Bell: It certainly wasn’t what I told the fourth grade class what I wanted to be when I grew up. But I consider myself born into it. My father was mayor of my hometown when I was born. Public service has been a part of my family’s background and inspired me to do the same work. I had a friend who had been working in elections and knew of time-limited regional positions that were being created to support the roll out of voting equipment and training. She reached out and said, “We don't seem to have any interest in western North Carolina. Would you be interested?” I said, "Sure." That three-year role turned into a five-year role, and was much more than just training or voting equipment. That role set me up to be the director of the board of elections in Transylvania County.
Issue One: What part of the election administration story in North Carolina do you think is not told or widely understood enough?
Karen Brinson Bell: When I came into the role of state elections director in 2019, there was a lack of trust in election processes due to the potential interference in the 2016 election. I was brought in after North Carolina had called a new election in the 9th Congressional District because of ballot harvesting and concerns around vote buying.
We realized that there was a lot of misunderstanding about how that had happened and how election processes work. So, we launched our own voter confidence campaign in 2019 called “Your Vote Counts” to tell our story as election administrators and educate people about the complexity of North Carolina elections.
North Carolina has been a very split state politically. It’s not surprising that North Carolina falls into the pool of battleground states when the election outcomes have a Republican senator winning while a Democrat wins the governor’s race.
Because of that split, there have been many accusations that election officials interfered with elections somehow. The reality is that's just North Carolina. I was born and raised in North Carolina, and this history of split-ticket voting goes way back. Lots of folks have moved to North Carolina who aren’t aware of this history. I try to help educate people because this paradox in how North Carolina votes will continue to play out.
Issue One: While you were executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, how many voters were on the roll across the state? And can you speak to some of the differences in jurisdictions across the state in terms of population size, geography, and other characteristics?
Karen Brinson Bell: North Carolina has around 7.5 to 8 million registered voters, and population changes significantly influence our responsibilities and roles as election administrators. Having been in the election field for 20 years, and being a North Carolina native, it's been really interesting to see the population growth and the change in dynamics over time. It’s also been interesting to administer elections given the diversity of the state, and to see how economic disparities influence the ability to recruit poll workers and the expenses of changing out voting equipment to have the newest technology. There is also the challenge of recruiting poll workers when you have counties that are heavily partisan, as our state statute requires bipartisan representation in our polling places.
I’m North Carolina’s fourth ever state elections director, and I am the only one who had been a county election official. My prior roles really changed the way that I led. As state elections director, you're the chief election official over this huge jurisdiction of 100 counties, with some being really large and others extremely tiny. I was a county elections director in one of the smaller ones, so it gave me a really interesting perspective of how to do a lot on a small budget.
I honestly think one of the interesting dynamics about North Carolina elections is the variation in the size of counties. Not just the economics of it, but the difference between rural North Carolina in western and eastern parts of the state and some of the really large urban areas. My prior role was helpful in trying to balance each county's individual needs and still have uniformity.
Issue One: North Carolina was facing Hurricane Helene during the 2024 elections. As the state elections director during that time, what changes did you and your team have to make in order to still conduct safe and accessible elections?
Karen Brinson Bell: We spent the five years leading up to Hurricane Helene building out strong partnerships for emergency management, such as with the sheriffs’ association, the North Carolina National Guard, and the North Carolina Local Government Information Systems Association. Our emergency management plans carried us through Hurricane Dorian in 2019. It was part of how we got through the pandemic, which had the largest percentage of voter turnout ever in the state of North Carolina. To respond to Helene, we had to be responsive to the needs on the ground. North Carolina is one of few states that has a state board of elections instead of a secretary of state [as the chief elections authority], and the board actually has emergency authority in the case of a natural disaster or a declared emergency. We were able to make adaptations to ensure that the county offices affected by Helene could continue to operate. Fourteen of our counties were heavily impacted, and in a week’s time, we had all county offices operating.
When Helene hit, we were 19 days out from the start of early voting, which is the most popular voting method in North Carolina. We knew it was critical to get those sites back up and running, and we ended up having 76 out of the 80 sites in the 25 affected counties operational by the start of early voting. We also made sure to do an assessment on the state of our team. It was days before we knew all of our county officials were okay, but because of our relationship with the different agencies, we knew that the facilities and equipment were okay. Absentee mail voting was already underway, so we were coordinating with the postal service to find out where these ballots were.
When I reflect upon how we were successful, it certainly was the preparation in advance, but also being human and recognizing the work of our field support staff and their sheer dedication to serving their communities. Recognizing that people need to be able to focus first on their personal needs before they can help someone else.
And being creative, too. We developed attack response kits for situations where counties were compromised from a cyber attack, so that clean laptops, cell phones, and cradle points [i.e., internet routers] could be deployed to ensure offices were operational.
We were able to use some of those kits during Helene and expand them to also protect against an attack from Mother Nature when cell phone towers are down. The innovation of the election team both at the state board and at the county level was just incredible.
Issue One: In recent years, election-related misconceptions, conspiracy theories, and lies have proliferated. How did this impact your work as the state’s chief election official, and how did you address these challenges?
Karen Brinson Bell: The landscape certainly has changed over my 20 years in this field. I never envisioned a day where I’d see a sign asking what Karen was doing with ballots. We never had ballots at the state board of elections — ballot counting happens at the local level. I never imagined a day when a Capitol police officer would come to my door and escort me to a safer place. But that day happened in 2020. Before, most people didn't even realize who their election directors were and then suddenly they became household names. We had started our own voter confidence campaign, and I think that helped us to get out in front of the misinformation, false narratives, and personal attacks because we were already telling our story.
That didn't keep them from happening, it just meant that we could pivot and put accurate information out more quickly. We really put an emphasis on making sure people know who the faces of democracy are. Our county directors, county staff, and poll workers are the ones who are working the front lines, and they are willing to say to their community, “I trust this process. I'm willing to be a part of this process. You can trust what's happening in elections.” I often struggled as state elections director knowing that some of the most vile things were said to these workers, like the retired high school science teacher who’s willing to go and be a poll worker and do work that is just to be of service to all voters. You have to have teflon skin to work in this space.
My role was to make sure that we were safeguarding the institution of elections and making sure that people understood the elections process, the checks and balances, and the nonpartisan ways that elections are conducted.
Issue One: Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, what is your elevator pitch for why someone should work as a poll worker?
Karen Brinson Bell: The front lines of democracy are actually in the polling places, making sure that your neighbors and friends can exercise their right to vote. When you see someone vote for the first time or continue to exercise their right to vote when they are over a hundred years of age, you’re having an effect on democracy for our state and our nation. I think the reward of such an experience far outweighs the long hours and negativity associated with being an election worker.
Issue One: What are your biggest concerns as you look ahead to the 2026 midterm elections?
Karen Brinson Bell: My biggest concern is the lack of willingness for a candidate to concede — or drawing the election process into question after the game has been played and the rules were known by everyone. In North Carolina in 2024, it took six months for all the challenges, recounts, and court cases to play out and for us to certify the winning candidate [in the state’s Supreme Court race] so that they could be sworn in. It was a close contest and exercising every avenue available is certainly a candidate's right. But, we’re seeing a pattern develop of not being willing to concede and to question whether the election was conducted correctly, including the processes, procedures, voter lists, and voting equipment. That’s one of our biggest challenges we're going to face in 2026 — candidates trying to change the rules of the game after the game's already done.
Issue One: Given the various challenges we’ve talked about, what inspired you to stay in this line of work when you were serving as an election official?
Karen Brinson Bell: We had huddles where we would meet virtually with the counties every other week. We went through tough times where our integrity and profession was being questioned. I said to them: Have that moment that reminds you of your best day on your worst day. I have three moments that stand out to me that I always draw on — moments when I interacted directly with a voter and realized that all the long hours, all the sacrifices, all the hard work were changing the life of that voter.
When you realize how much of a difference your work makes, how do you not keep going? Even though I've transitioned into the consulting space, I'm still doing work to support election officials and help them grow professionally. I’m particularly focused on emergency response planning for natural disasters and cyber attacks. We have to be ready because we don't stop an election — we figure out how to proceed. When you see the resiliency and the tenacity of election officials in North Carolina, and how they delivered voting through some of the worst devastation, that’s what keeps you going. Election administrators are the stewards of democracy and our institutional knowledge, our experience, and our enthusiasm is needed now more than ever.
Issue One: Outside of being passionate about running safe and secure elections, what are your hobbies, or what is a fun fact that most people might not know about you?
Karen Brinson Bell: I was a majorette in high school and know how to twirl a fire baton. I spend a lot of my time at NC State athletic events. When I'm not at a game, I usually have it on TV. I'm also an avid traveler. Before I turned 50, I traveled to all 50 states. My husband and I made it a goal for ourselves to see every state capital. And because the last name is Bell, we came to realize there’s a replica of the Liberty Bell in every state. So, we are seeing those replicas whenever we’re traveling. I'm also a very active aunt, and I’m obsessed with our dog, Kramer.
Amelia Minkin is a research associate at Issue One.
Caroline Pirrone is an election protection and money in politics intern at Issue One.
Ella Charlesworth is the strategic engagement manager at Issue One.
