# Karen Brinson Bell Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections from 2019 until May 2025, when a newly Republican-majority board removed her in a party-line vote and replaced her with [[Sam Hayes]]. She had administered the state's elections through 2020, 2022, and 2024 and the litigation over the disputed 2024 state Supreme Court race; her ouster followed the GOP legislature's restructuring of board control.