Business versus state experience duke it out in NC Secretary of State race

North Carolina’s secretary of state acknowledges that many people outside the business world don’t understand her role in the state.

“Business people have some inkling,” Elaine Marshall said, “but the general public doesn’t. That’s complicated by the fact that the most widely recognized thing that most secretaries do is elections.

“I suffer there.”

Marshall, 74, is not in charge of North Carolina’s elections and said she doesn’t want to be.

Instead she said she runs what she called the state’s maternity ward for businesses.

And she’s up for reelection in November facing off against Republican businessman E.C. Sykes.

Marshall has been a trailblazer in North Carolina politics. She became the first woman to be elected secretary of state and to a state executive office.

That was 24 years ago in 1996 when she beat out NASCAR legend Richard Petty.

But it is those 24 years of service that put a target on her back.

When 60-year-old Sykes ran for the Republican nomination he and his two other GOP opponents attacked Marshall for overstaying her welcome.

The candidates

Marshall has an eclectic past that led her to her six terms in office.

Born in Maryland, Marshall attended the University of Maryland and earned her economics degree.

She served as a home economics teacher before pursuing a law degree from Campbell University. And while serving as an attorney she made a name for herself in politics working for multiple Democratic Party organizations.

From there, Marshall became a North Carolina state senator in 1993, and stayed there until her election as secretary of state.

Her opponent has an equally diverse background.

Born in Durham, Sykes received his master’s degree in management from N.C. State University.

He boasts a career as CEO of two tech companies and a manufacturing company and was a group president at Flextronics, a $28 billion Fortune 500 company that employs more than 200,000 people worldwide, The News & Observer previously reported.

His campaign has focused on his business background that he said included creating businesses and reducing wasteful spending.

He added that North Carolina needs a cheerleader who encourages an economic vision for the future.

The job of secretary of state

Marshall describes the job of secretary of state as the three basics of the economy: business formation, financing and entrepreneurship.

Marshall said running the secretary of state’s office reminds her of a large law practice and that sets her apart from Sykes.

She said her office has prosecuting authority and having been a lawyer helps her that.

But Sykes said the secretary of state’s office drives and regulates commerce and economic growth and needs a different kind of experience.

“As we’ve been telling people, look, you need a business leader,” Sykes said. “You need fresh ideas and a person who has run companies and created jobs.”

Sykes added that COVID-19 has made this even more important. “It’s a tough time and people need help,” he said.

Technology and customer service

Technology has been a point of pride for Marshall.

She said her team created a new information technology infrastructure which has allowed the office to serve customers at low overhead costs.

She said her office has even loaned out the technology to other secretaries of state with only two conditions: acknowledge where the software came from and provide any software those offices added to the technology.

But her opponent criticized this technology. He said the software made publicly available information disappear from her website, including information about other businesses.

The customer service Marshall provides has been a key point in Sykes’ campaign.

Sykes said he has fielded numerous complaints about people being left on hold for 15 to 30 minutes by Marshall’s office.

“The first thing we need to do is listen to the people,” Sykes said, “and what they’re telling me is, look, the customer service, the support level, is really poor.”

Sykes said his experience running customer-service based companies can improve this for businesses.

“By doing that it can make it easier on companies wanting to start doing business in North Carolina,” Sykes said.

Sykes said that is the key to growing North Carolina’s economy.

COVID-19 and broadband

But Marshall stands by the technology her staff offers.

She said COVID-19 tested their system earlier this year when community colleges stopped offering in-person notary classes.

To find a solution, Marshall said her staff created an emergency notary training video.

“We had to put that out there for every notary in North Carolina,” Marshall said. “There’s about 157,000 of them.”

She said they then included interactive courses with community colleges which tested her system’s infrastructure.

And Marshall said COVID-19 has raised another issue that will be key to her in her next term: broadband expansion.

She said she supports legislation that would “roll back” a law that prevents municipalities from getting into the broadband industry.

She said she would also work with co-ops and public telephone companies to expand broadband and with nonprofits to find funding.

“That’s going to be contingent upon some changes at the General Assembly,” Marshall said, “because we would have more broadband in rural areas had the General Assembly not enacted barricades to that happening. And those leaders are still there.”

Marshall said if the election changes who is in the legislature that broadband expansion would give access to medical coverage, education and economic development.

Marshall said if there’s anything good that came out of COVID-19 it is that more people realized the need for broadband expansion.

This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 10:17 AM with the headline "Business versus state experience duke it out in NC Secretary of State race."