Cumberland Elections Director Retires Amid Ongoing Effort to Fire Her

The embattled Cumberland County elections director abruptly retired  Saturday, four months after the three Republicans on the five-member county Board of Elections tried to have her fired, and 11 days after the three, plus a Democrat, sought her dismissal a second time.

“This was not an easy decision to make but one I feel was forced to make,” Angie Amaro said in a letter she sent to the board on Friday. Her retirement notice also took aim at elections board Chair Linda Devore.

“Since the completion of the March 3, 2026 election especially, Mrs. Devore ramped up her long standing effort to have me removed as Director of Elections, regardless of the effect on the operations of the office and the preparation for the upcoming mid-term election,” Amaro wrote.

“The emotional toll of the past several months is difficult to put into words what this Board has put me through. After twenty-five years of dedicating my career to serving the voters of Cumberland County, I found myself working in an environment where I no longer felt trusted, respected, or valued.”

Amaro’s departure from the elections office may be the coda to a period of tension between county elections staff and some members of its board, in particular with Devore.

Even if she survived the effort to fire her, “I do not feel I could work effectively with Mrs. Devore and others still involved with this office,” Amaro said.

Amaro joined the elections office in February 2002 and became its interim elections director in January 2022. She became the permanent elections director in October 2022.

“It was an open secret that Mrs. Devore did not want me to be hired as Director and intended to have me removed as soon as she could,” Amaro wrote.

The first petition to dismiss Amaro was filed April 2 without the knowledge of the board’s two Democrats. It generated speculation among Democrats and local activists that the board’s Republican majority was trying to replace her with a partisan leader that favored Republicans. Protesters went to board meetings to support Amaro.

But the April petition was withdrawn after the board received additional information, Devore told CityView on Monday. On July 21, a new petition with bipartisan support was filed. Democratic board member Derek Edmonds signed it along with Republicans Devore, Ryan Johnson, and Bree Eldridge.

“The 4-1 decision of our Board was based on careful consideration and investigation of factual information available to us, and focused on how to provide the best and most competent administration of our elections process,” Devore said.

The fact that the new removal petition was signed by a Democrat proves that the board’s desire to dismiss Amaro was not based on partisan politics, Devore said. “We make the right decisions for the right reasons, and I think the public can have confidence in that,” she said.

Democratic board member Irene Grimes did not sign either petition.

“I was for a while under a lot of pressure to sign on to a petition, and I did not, and I would not, because I don’t think she deserves it,” Grimes said.

She had hoped the problems the board’s majority had with Amaro’s job performance could be addressed through training or some other method rather than firing her.

The board tried to work with Amaro, Devore said. “We did, and four members of the board decided that was not the best path,” she said.

Through Grimes, Amaro declined an interview request. Edmonds could not be reached for comment.

Reasons to Fire Amaro Kept Secret 

Following the petition filing in April, Amaro was placed on paid leave on April 24. She never returned to work.

Under state law, a majority of a county elections board must petition  the state elections executive director to fire their county elections director. His decision is final unless the state elections board steps in.

“We thank Ms. Amaro for her years of dedicated service to Cumberland County, including nearly four years as Director of Elections,” Devore said. “We respect her decision to retire at this time, and wish her well in the years ahead.”

Devore and Grimes have declined to publicly discuss why members of the board want to fire Amaro, citing state privacy laws concerning personnel records. The contents of the two petitions have not been made public.

Since Amaro was placed on paid leave, Deputy Director Vicki Hilburn has run the elections office.

The board plans to select an interim director in the coming weeks, Devore said, and a new permanent director will be hired after the November 3 election.

The county elections board will vet candidates and make a recommendation to the state elections executive director, who will make the hiring decision, Devore said.

Clues of Clashes

Conflicts between Amaro and Devore have sometimes become public.

Devore and Amaro disagreed on whether the Board of Elections broke state law when it met on October 31 after giving the public less than 24 hours notice of the meeting, Grimes told CityView. Following a consultation with the county attorney’s office, Amaro and Grimes questioned the legality of the meeting, Grimes said.

Except in an emergency, state law requires government bodies to publicly announce a meeting 48 hours in advance. The law says “an ‘emergency meeting’ is one called because of generally unexpected circumstances that require immediate consideration by the public body.”

The October 31 emergency meeting was called to make final decisions on a budget request due that night with the county manager’s office, Devore told CityView that day.

The deadline was known in advance, Devore said. Amaro should have brought the budget request to the board at a meeting earlier in October or arranged to schedule a meeting with at least 48 hours public notice, Devore said, “and I should have insisted, but that did not happen.”

In March, after a fair elections activist filed a complaint against Devore with the State Board of Elections, Devore shared with CityView a chain of emails in which she and Amaro argued in February. They disagreed on whether Amaro was following a new policy the county elections board enacted for where people may campaign outside voting sites. The complaint was later dismissed.

In June, a county elections office employee filed a complaint against Devore. In part, it said she had gotten inappropriately involved in day-to-day operations of the office. In response to the complaint, Devore told CityView in June that Amaro apparently had allowed an employee to work remotely even though the board had never approved a remote work policy for the elections office staff.

The State Board of Elections dismissed the June complaint.

Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.

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