A North Carolina state senator on Tuesday accused the state’s Board of Elections (BOE) director of breaking the law ahead of last November’s general election by agreeing to a settlement that changed the rules around voting—allegations the director denied. “In my heart, you broke the law,” Sen. Bill Rabon, a Republican, told BOE executive director Karen Brinson Bell, at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Rabon’s allegations of unlawful conduct were in reference to Bell entering into an agreement in September 2020 with a union-affiliated group to settle a lawsuit that sought to ease some voting requirements. The group argued that restrictive absentee rules burdened the right to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, in violation of the state constitution. North Carolina’s Democrat-controlled elections board unanimously authorized Bell to enter into the agreement, which introduced a number of rule changes that Senate Republicans on Tuesday argued amounted to modifications to state election laws, which they …