Niya Rayner, director of the Sampson County Board of Elections, addresses board memebers Coley Michael Warren, Dwight Williams Jr. and Franklin Brown at Tuesday’s meeting, where a software upgrade was discussed.
Chuck Thompson | Sampson Independent
New software updates for the Sampson County Board of Elections are in the works. That was the word from the Sampson County Board of Elections during its meeting last week.
Meeting on Tuesday, Niya Rayner, director of the Board of Elections, said the replacement of Unity Software was going to happen in the next few months, something mandated by the state. The software is used for county machines to keep track of voting.
“The software will change what we use for this year, and we are going to have to use the state software,” said Rayner. “We don’t have a choice.”
The change is due to the current system no longer being upgraded. Money to fund the new system was made possible through a Homeland Security grant.
“Our software support no longer supports Unity and the state has applied for a grant, and received a grant, to be allocated $3,000 for an upgrade for our software. There is no cost to the county and the upgrade will be covered by the grant,” the elections director told the board.
Rayner noted while there is no cost to the county for the new software upgrade, known as Es&S version 5.2.4.0, the yearly maintenance is paid for by Sampson, and will continue to be paid by the county annually.
Rayner said the software upgrade should happen sometime around May.
As for other items discussed in the Tuesday morning meeting, according to Raynor they are working with Interim County Manager Jeffrey Hudson on creating a 2025-26 budget for the department. The board was supposed to meet with him at Tuesday’s monthly meeting but Hudson had a scheduling conflict and will be attending the next meeting in March.
Rayner also informed the board that she will be attending the Sampson County Economic Development’s demographic forum on March 11.
The Board of Election director also noted she is working on getting a flag pole for the building, “I am checking on getting that for enhancements,” Raynor said to the board, clarifying that it is just a request at this time.
The next regularly schedule meeting for the Sampson County Board of Elections will be March 13 at 7 p.m., in their county complex offices off Rowan Road..