Source: Travis Fain, WRAL, 5/13/19

Democrats on the State Board of Elections voted in a conference call Monday to replace the state elections director, pushing the decision through as fire alarms blared and forced the evacuation of the board's office downtown. Reporters and the agency's legal staff listened around a cellphone outside as board members, none of whom was there in person, voted 3-2 to replace Kim Strach with Karen Brinson Bell, a former elections director in Transylvania County.

For more of this story, click here.