The Deeper Roots of Election Problems in South Carolina

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In May of 2022 the Republican-majority SC General Assembly passed what they deemed to be the “most comprehensive election reform legislation in the country” in the form of Act 150. This legislation introduced early voting in South Carolina, which is interesting, given the fact that prior to Election Day being standardized to the first Tuesday in November in 1945, some people crossed state lines to vote more than once, potentially allowing people to travel to multiple polls during the time period.

One would think that because of this “iron clad” legislation, the system is not being taken advantage of and no voter fraud exists, even though there is a long history of it in the U.S. We haven’t even take into consideration the expense that early voting has added to the cost of carrying out elections in our state, which will not be fully realized until after this year’s general election cycle.

There are so many issues that Act 150 did not address, and that many aren’t even talking about, so we compiled a brief list of the issues that truly comprehensive election reform legislation would address:

Throw Out ERIC

Those who have done their research on ERIC, whose membership is dwindling, know why SC should make an exit from this organization. For example, ERIC’s membership documents require states, at taxpayer expense, to send out notices to eligible but unregistered (EBU) voters, an initiative that traces back to the Pew Institute and leftist-billionaire George Soros. In March of 2023, a SC House Representative tried to cut ERIC funding based on several troubling facts that were leading other states to tear up their ERIC contracts, but was voted against by the majority of the General Assembly. See their reasons why HERE.

No New Election Technology

We want to be careful with our solutions in SC especially where introducing new technology is concerned because historically those solutions have lacked not only transparency but also accountability. We do not support technology that utilizes blockchain technology. As it stands, current laws do not foster transparency of the process of counting our ballots, which is a protected right according to the SC Constitution (See Art. II Sect. 1 of the SC Constitution). Why would we consider adding new technology into the mix?

I believe there are some solutions that would satisfy both the paper-only people and the machine people that we could pilot to increase accountability and verify that our ballots are being counted as cast. More on this later.

The Issue Behind Closed vs. Open Primaries

Upon reading SC Code of Laws Title 7 Ch. 9 it becomes plainly evident that the only two parties in SC that will ever have any traction are the current 2 major parties that are ubiquitous throughout the country. What happens when the ideals of both parties are so warped by the same special interest groups that the parties no longer reflect the values of the majority of people they claim to represent? The Republican party has suggested closing primaries but it seems that this will just further codify the two-party interest system into South Carolina law, when a survey of current elected officials reveals that the Republican party alone contains an entire spectrum of viewpoints.

In order to solve this root issue, South Carolina must remove verbiage in state law that makes it a monumental task for alternate political parties to be listed on the ballot. Closing primaries is at best a bandaid and at worst a further solidification of the current problem.

The Dangers of Special Interests

Spend a couple of years paying attention to politics at the state level and you’ll find out pretty quickly who actually runs the show. Yes, we do have a lot of lawyer-legislators seemingly passing legislation that appears to benefit their bottom line (liquor liability insurance, anyone?). However, one might also notice the large influence lobbyists seem to have on our legislators. In fact, we understand that certain categories of laws won’t be considered unless they are passed through the approval process of some of the more influential lobbyist groups, most of which don’t have the same interest as the citizens of this state. Citizens should be able to trust that someone who ran on an issue they support to continue to take the same stance on that issue once elected. If only there were a way to hold elected officials accountable more often than at the ballot box. During the legislative season (the entire rest of the time your elected official is in office, when they are no longer courting you to gain your vote), legislators tend to vote in ways that do not follow the platform they were elected on.

If only there were some options…

Adding Recall Options

If a politician isn’t doing what voters put them in office to do, citizens should have the right to remove them from office. Why is there no recall option in South Carolina? Remember when Governor Henry McMaster kept issuing Executive Orders declaring a State of Emergency loooong after everyone knew COVID was over?

Of course, no politician is ever going to willingly vote to jeopardize their position of power, but more accountability really should be an option for SC citizens.

Removing Straight Party Voter Option

This is a big one that I have not heard anyone talking about. With one exception, there is a certain GOP official who boasts about the large numbers of people in SC who opt to vote straight party every election. Let’s just say, do some research on this one. It’s not something to boast about, especially if a well-educated and interested voting population is your end goal. In fact, SC is one of only 7 states that still allows this option, which some could even argue is an indirect way to influence elections…

Abolishing the Coconut Shell Game

Who’s responsible for elections in SC? That is the question.

Here’s how it works. Each county’s Delegation (those senators and representatives elected to that county) recommends citizens to serve on the local Election Commission, who are then appointed by the Governor (who I understand has said that his role is merely ministerial in nature, meaning that he just signs his name but has no actual decision-making authority, the authority lies with the local Delegations, who insist that the Governor has the final say-so).

Moving on, these county Election Commissions hire a Director of Voter Registration and Elections, who in turn hires the staff of the agency. Each county is responsible for paying the salaries of these election workers, and for providing ample office space for these workers, even though they have absolutely zero say in who these workers are, nor can they do anything regarding the employees’ performance, or lack thereof.

At the state level, there is also a Board and State Election Commission, with positions appointed by the Governor, and the Director confirmed by the senate. Several times over the past few months I’ve attended meetings with the current SEC director, who has said more than one time that the SEC has no power to make the local election office do anything, they can just recommend. Yet I have personally witnessed a local election office point to SEC guidance as the reason why they are not allowed to do something (e.g. produce information requested via FOIA).

In fact, I have also witnessed a county Elections Director bypass communication with their county commission (which hired them) and go directly to the State Election Commission for guidance.

This has allowed the game of pointing fingers at another entity to thrive and is doing nothing for transparency and accountability in our elections. In fact, I would argue, that the whole situation is moving in the reverse, if anything.

True election reform in South Carolina would provide for a clear chain of command and also put an end to the trend toward centralization with the expansion of the SEC.

Extending the Deadline to Certify the Vote

Did you know that SC is one of only about a dozen states that only allows election workers 3 days to certify the vote? These offices, many of which are likely understaffed, have to certify the vote in record time, resulting in corners being cut (and possibly even laws being violated). Interestingly enough, SC state law verbiage could possibly allow for an additional 10 days if a consistent application of the language were implemented.

SC Code 7-17-20 states “The county board of canvassers, respectively, shall then proceed to canvass the votes of the county and make such statements of such votes as the nature of the election shall require no later than noon on the Saturday next following the election and at such time shall transmit to the State Board of Canvassers the results of their findings.”

Saturday next. Last time I checked this meant the Saturday after this coming Saturday. In fact, after the 2022 Primaries, the SCGOP was granted an entire extra week for a response to an election protest based on the interpretation of the ‘next’ to mean an entire week later.

Alabama actually provides clarification, adding the word “second” to make it read “second Friday next” (Ala. Code 17-12-15)https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-17/chapter-12/section-17-12-15/.

One thing I’ve learned is that our legislators don’t usually write the laws. They’re given laws by others, or use cookie-cutter law borrowed from other states. Is it possible that the ridiculously short timeframe allotted to election officials in SC could have resulted from a potential misinterpretation of what the term “Saturday next” really meant?

Real election reform law would address this, because longer times to certify the vote would allow more time for…

Better, Meaningful Post-Election Audits

I have to say, the post-election audit process as it stands right now in South Carolina is a joke. For starters, these election officials have so enshrined the process that when a member of the public attempts to observe the post-election hand count audit, at least one county places stanchions to prevent the public from getting too close. In fact, said stanchions prevent the public from even being able to read what’s on the ballots that are being reviewed by county employees. What’s the point? And why are county employees, the ones who ran the elections actually performing these audits? Shouldn’t others come behind them and check the accuracy? Most of the time audits are performed by outside entities. Why don’t we have political parties, or representatives of each candidate, checking the accuracy of the vote?

To add insult to injury, take a look at the number of ballots audited after the 2024 Primaries, for example. I couldn’t have chosen more races to audit with 0 or 1 ballots if I tried! And how does auditing a race that has zero ballots count as part of an audit to begin with? For example, in Aiken the House District 81 race had 3864 ballots cast, yet the only hand count audit of that race was one of an early voting center well outside the boundaries of that district (and not the central voter registration location either), with a total of zero ballots cast. There were 176 races audited (this is not the entire race, it is only one race at a preselected precinct, not the entire race (this is never done)), nor is an entire precinct ever audited. Of the 176, fourteen had ZERO ballots, and another seventeen had 10 or fewer. If we’re going for statistically significant, this doesn’t cut it. Of the total ballots cast statewide, less than 3% of the ballots were audited.

A strong election reform law would address these issues, making the process more open to actual observation by the public, providing for a balance of people performing the audit (e.g. representatives of candidates, all political parties involved in the race, etc.), and a statistically significant number of precincts (entire precincts) and/or races (audit the entire race in all precincts that cast ballots in said race).

Transparency

This encompasses a whole slew of issues those at the grassroots have encountered with the election process – both in local offices and at the state level. Two examples should suffice:

First, in the 2022 Primaries, citizens reported to the SEC that the election equipment that was supposed to have a security seal in place sometimes had missing seals. Even worse, a few instances were documented by photo to have seals that had been tampered with (the tape reads “void” after it’s been removed and reaffixed instead of following the proper procedure to replace the seal). What was the response? The SEC created a new policy (I say policy because it is now in the Poll Worker Handbook) that cites SC Code 7-25-100 as a law that prohibits a person from taking a photo inside a polling place. Please read this law for yourself and let us know where it says it is against SC law to take a photograph in the polling place. It is our contention that this restriction placed by the SEC is a violation of a citizens’ right to redress the government. If we have no way to prove an allegation, how can we make a complaint when something isn’t being done properly?

Secondly, we have discussed this before, as have our colleagues at SC Safe Elections: the importance of cast vote records. And really, other public records too that our election officials have declined to provide under SC FOIA law. This topic requires at minimum an entire article to explain, but suffice it to say, our SEC has declined to provide a record that is available in most other states, was created by the machine manufacturer to be available for public consumption, and according to our FOIA law, the reasons given not to release them, have workarounds – i.e. easy ways to redact certain information – which is also something SC FOIA law addresses and says the government needs to release information that is subject to FOIA, and redact if necessary, but not to withhold releasing information because an item or two within the document isn’t subject to FOIA.

Meaningful election reform would address these issues of transparency in the election process.

Decrease Cost of Voter Rolls

Did you know that SC voter rolls cost more than almost every other state? In this day and age when the rolls are easily put in spreadsheet format and emailed to the recipient, there is absolutely no reason why it should cost a citizen $2500 to purchase the voter rolls for the entire state. That means that a grassroots group that wants to ensure the voter rolls are clean would have to spend $10,000 in an election year to purchase those statewide voter rolls 3 times to do meaningful analysis (pre-primary, post-primary, pre-general election, post-general election). While state law allows for the SEC to charge for the purchase of the voter rolls, subject-matter expert testimony at a hearing in front of the SEC last fall (p. 58) revealed that a more reasonable price would be in the ballpark of $200 each.

Catch-All

I am sure I have missed some glaringly important issues. This is not an exhaustive list, but I believe many of these issues, if addressed, would not only greatly improve voter confidence, but also provide for more accountability and transparency. SC grassroots needs to continue to push for more accountability and transparency in elections. And if we’re going to continue to use these ridiculously expensive machines that have a very short life span, let’s start doing what makes sense: putting human eyes on the ballots to make sure the machine is reading the bar code correctly.