A North Carolina state senator accused the director of the state’s Board of Elections (BOE) of breaking the law ahead of last November’s general election by agreeing to a settlement that changed the rules around voting—allegations that the official has 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 March 23. 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 Democratic-controlled elections board unanimously authorized Bell to enter into the agreement, which introduced a number of rule changes that Senate Republicans on March 23 argued amounted to modifications to state election …