By Kyle Ingram for The Raleigh News & Observer

Historically, the North Carolina state auditor has largely operated away from the spotlight.

The office, like most elected positions on the Council of State, deals with largely administrative tasks and tends to attract far less attention than the governor or attorney general.

Months of controversy over former Auditor Beth Wood’s use of state vehicles, which culminated in her resignation, interrupted this trend. But the auditor’s office could have faded back into relative obscurity, had it not been for a massive power shift bill enacted in the waning days of the GOP’s veto-proof supermajority in the General Assembly.

Enveloped within the 132-page bill (which was billed as a hurricane relief measure) was Republicans’ latest attempt to wrest control of the state’s election board from the governor — a crusade eight years in the making and informed by several defeats by courts and voters.

This time, they tried a new approach: giving authority over the powerful board to the state auditor, an office which just so happened to have been won by a Republican for the first time in 16 years.

In an interview with The News & Observer, newly elected State Auditor Dave Boliek, a lawyer and former chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, said that while he was not consulted about the power shift, he will nonetheless execute it faithfully.

“I feel very confident that we can professionally administer that — take on those roles and responsibilities and follow the law that they passed,” he said.

Even before Republicans granted him new election powers, the auditor’s race drew an unusual amount of attention.

Boliek, who spent most of his life as a registered Democrat, switched to the Republican Party in 2023 shortly before running for office.

While campaigning, he called for the creation of an “Office of Election Integrity,” decried diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and even earned the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

But now, just over a month into his new position, Boliek says his top priorities are largely nonpartisan.

He wants to make good on his campaign promise to audit the Division of Motor Vehicles, track relief efforts for Hurricane Helene and develop a comprehensive strategic plan for the auditor’s office.

However, even the day-to-day responsibilities of a state auditor may be impacted by the new national push to gut administrative agencies.

‘A sleeping giant’

Boliek’s tenure begins as Republicans nationwide embrace the chaotic and sweeping cuts to the federal bureaucracy led by Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency.

North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall has even formed a state version of Musk’s department, appointing two Republican lawmakers to head a new “Select Committee on Government Efficiency” with a goal of examining “state and local government operations for potential waste, duplication of services, mismanagement and violations of constitutional liberties.”

Senate leader Phil Berger, however, has said that he thinks the state auditor is well-positioned to take on that responsibility, the North Carolina Tribune reported.

Boliek said his own office is set up to be a state-level “office of government efficiency,” though he said he sees differences in his approach compared to Musk’s DOGE.

“If we get the facts wrong, then we lose credibility,” Boliek said. “So from our perspective, if you’re looking at government efficiency through the State Auditor’s Office, we’ve got to do it in a structured way. It has to be organized and it has to be strategic and it has to be viewed as a marathon, not a sprint.”

Nevertheless, Boliek said the office is “a bit of a sleeping giant” with the power to make a substantial impact on the everyday lives of North Carolinians.

His first major target is the DMV, an agency state lawmakers have reviled for years and described as “broken” due to long wait times and few appointments.

“I did a survey the other day in a group that I was speaking at and I think two out of about 75 said they had a good experience at the Division of Motor Vehicles,” Boliek said. “I just don’t think that’s acceptable in North Carolina, and I’m hopeful that this office can really be sort of a spark to help right that agency.”

During the campaign, Boliek promised a “top to bottom” audit of the DMV, citing a “breakdown” in the agency’s management.

Since taking office, he’s developed a framework for that process, planning multiple successive audits of the agency to be released as they are available. The first audit, which will tackle the DMV’s spending and budget plan, will be finished sometime in March, Boliek said.

“We’ll start with the money and then the corresponding focused audits after that will potentially come quicker,” he said. “… The dollars will indicate where we move and and how we group parts of the division to really give the public a view not only of that division, but a view of common-sense recommendations on how we can make that division work more efficiently.”

Boliek also plans to play a greater role in overseeing recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene.

His office has already published an interactive dashboard which shows data on housing for residents in the disaster zone. Boliek plans to expand that tool to give users insight on where recovery funds are going.

“Our goal is to track every dollar — if at all possible — and actual physical relief efforts,” he said.

But past the typical duties of the auditor’s office, many will be eyeing Boliek for how he handles politics and new powers.

An early opponent of DEI As Trump and DOGE target DEI programs nationwide, Boliek was early to the conservative push for restricting the initiatives.

In May, as chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, Boliek voted to divert millions of dollars spent on DEI programs into police and public safety programs instead.

And upon taking office as auditor, Boliek quickly announced that he was removing DEI policies from the office.

“My views on DEI have been pretty consistent,” he told The N&O. “I don’t think it’s a return on investment.”

Boliek cut implicit bias training for employees in his office and removed DEI metrics from performance evaluations. Newly elected Republican Labor Commissioner Luke Farley made similar changes in his office.

As auditor, Boliek is uniquely situated for a potential statewide review of DEI initiatives, but he said he doesn’t currently have any plans for doing so.

“If it comes up as part of the overall efficiency audit, then we would take a look at it — but I don’t have any specific strategy,” he said.

The country’s lone auditor with election powers

In May, unless the courts intervene, Boliek will earn a unique distinction.

He is poised to become the only state auditor in the country responsible for overseeing elections.

In May, unless the courts intervene, Boliek will earn a unique distinction. He is poised to become the only state auditor in the country responsible for overseeing elections.

While many have criticized the move as a partisan power grab, Boliek said the change does not feel unprecedented to him.

“North Carolina kind of sometimes does those things the way North Carolina wants to do them,” he said. “We don’t necessarily have to be like everybody else in the country.”

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein sued over the power shift, arguing that it violates the state’s constitution. A hearing has not yet been scheduled in the case.

If the Republican-passed legislation does into effect, Boliek will gain the authority to appoint members to the State Board of Elections — likely flipping the board’s partisan majority for the first time in eight years.

Currently, the governor is able to appoint three members of their own party to the board, while the remaining two members will be from the opposing party.

A change to the board’s composition could have major ramifications for how future elections — and disputes over the results — are handled.

In Republican Jefferson Griffin’s ongoing attempt to overturn his apparent loss in the state Supreme Court race, the State Board of Elections initially dismissed his challenges in mostly-party line votes, with the Democratic majority prevailing.

Boliek did not answer whether he would appoint a Republican majority to the board, but said he wanted members who have an awareness of the state’s purple election results and a “backbone to stand behind a decision that he or she may make.”

“I’m going to appoint the best people for the job who are going to follow the law and who are professional and competent at working as a member of the Board of Elections,” he said.

Though he said he purposely has not paid much attention to the dispute over the Supreme Court race and wouldn’t comment on the merits of Griffin’s claims, Boliek said some of the arguments in the case raise questions about the management of the elections board.

Griffin is relying on untested legal theories as he seeks to throw out over 65,000 ballots cast in the race. His claim that implicates the largest number of voters is that voters who did not have a driver’s license number or Social Security number in the state’s database should not have been allowed to cast their ballot.

The absence of that information does not necessarily imply error on the voter’s part, and attorneys for the State Board of Elections have argued that a variety of harmless reasons could account for it, such as clerical errors or matching issues with the national Social Security database.

In an affidavit, the board later claimed that about half of the voters Griffin is challenging actually did provide the contested information, but it just didn’t show up in the database — likely due to matching issues.

Nevertheless, Boliek said the missing data begs the question “what are boards of elections doing if they’re not going through these voter rolls and making sure that the fields are filled out correctly?”

“That sounds like a lot of entries to look at — but it doesn’t sound like an insurmountable number of entries to inspect and fix,” he said.

Time will tell if Boliek retains his new election powers. All previous attempts by Republican lawmakers to shift those powers have ultimately failed, with courts finding them unconstitutional or voters rejecting them at the ballot box.

But no such change has yet come before the state Supreme Court’s new Republican majority, and its members have already ruled in the legislature’s favor in several high-profile election cases.

Related: Why the NC auditor wants a major increase in staff

Related: Boliek and Briner push for transparency with DMV audit and financial reforms

Related: The Debrief with State Auditor Dave Boliek (video)

The preceding article originally appeared on February 21, 2025 at The Raleigh News & Observer’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Any views or opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Carolina Leadership Coalition. Photo above by Robert Willett for the News & Observer.