North Carolina’s election technology is long overdue for an upgrade, state officials say, and now a bipartisan commission is poised to meet for the first time Tuesday to dive into the nitty-gritty of modernizing the systems.
In the end, officials say, election results should come faster, voter data should be better maintained, and the systems that organize votes should be more secure.
North Carolina’s Statewide Elections Information Management System (SEIMS) dates 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. The current systems 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.
State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican whose office oversees state election administration, created the bipartisan commission to help oversee the modernization effort, and to build faith among voters who might be skeptical of the process. 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.
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.
Phase one of the modernization effort — including requesting proposals from vendors and creating the commission — is complete. The second phase will take several years. Boliek plans incremental modernization of the current system to keep it operational.
In the meantime, Boliek says the current system is in good shape to produce accurate results and a fair election.