Poised for potential COVID-19 expansion, SC prepares for absentee voter surge
South Carolinians have already asked for more mail-in absentee ballots ahead of the November general election than they mailed in four years ago, setting themselves up to eclipse the state’s 2016 record for absentee voting by mail.
And in-person absentee voting — another way of voting before election day that officials expect to break records — hasn’t even started yet.
South Carolina is preparing for an early absentee voter surge like no other in a year when a statewide virus outbreak has forced election officials to double down on safety measures and at a time when the effectiveness of the U.S. Postal Service is on many voters’ minds.
It’s why state election leaders are suggesting — strongly — that voters who are eligible to vote absentee request and send back their applications now, even before the South Carolina Legislature comes back to Columbia to address voting issues.
Voters are set to shatter the state’s record of 140,000 absentee ballots mailed in for the 2016 general election.
As of Monday, at least 191,000 absentee ballot applications had been returned — a record for applications, too — and that number will continue to grow in the weeks before the Nov. 3 general election, said Chris Whitmire with the State Election Commission.
Looking back, the state issued more than 516,000 absentee ballots ahead of the 2016 presidential election and 503,928 were returned.
Whitmire said ballots will be mailed out in late September and early October.
Under current law, S.C. voters are eligible to vote absentee if they have one of the 18 reasons specified in the law. The reasons include age, disability or being a member of the military. State election officials are urging those people to get their ballot requests in now.
“If you know, for example, that you have an underlying condition act now,” Whitmire said. “Get your application now and return it.”
Next month, voters likely will be able to request an absentee ballot without any excuse at all.
The state Senate heads back to Columbia on Wednesday to address voting concerns and updates to the state’s election laws due to COVID-19 that will allow South Carolinians to “vote safely and securely” in November, said Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee.
In May, lawmakers expanded absentee voting to all registered voters ahead of the June primary out of COVID-19 concerns and as, in some cases, hundreds of poll workers — many of whom are older than 65 and vulnerable to the virus — decided to sit out this election year. Legislators also waived the state’s requirement for a signature on absentee ballots by mail before June elections.
“If the COVID-19 pandemic is still prevalent in our State, the Senate must make plans to protect the voter and the vote,” Peeler said in a letter to colleagues this month. “We don’t know what the situation will be like in November, but we need to prepare for safe and secure voting.”
Unlike the Senate, the House won’t return until Sept. 15 when the Legislature was already scheduled to return to the State House.
Leaders in both chambers have not publicly stated how either body plans to vote. However, last Wednesday, House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-York, told reporters outside the S.C. Governor’s Mansion that voters could see lawmakers do something similar to what they did in May.
That would include, Simrill said, allowing outer envelopes of absentee ballots to be opened before election day, potentially even earlier than the Monday right before the election.
“And then, of course, COVID-19 (will be) listed as a disability” giving voters the right to cast an absentee ballot, Simrill said.
Even without legislative action, the state’s election office is making significant changes to help voters before November.
So far, at least 18 counties plan to open more than 40 extension offices, and county boards of registration and elections will open in-person absentee voting on Sept. 28 — a week earlier than the usual 29 days before an election day — to help curb voter traffic.
And counties will have more drop boxes where voter can easily drop off absentee ballots, Whitmire said.
Over the past few weeks, debate raged nationwide over the effectiveness of the U.S. Postal Service after the federal agency’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, announced changes in mail delivery service that worried critics about the timeliness of mail and ballot delivery. DeJoy has since delayed some of those operational changes until after Nov. 3 after loud public outcry.
“Our experience has been great,” Whitmire said. “They’re dedicated, ... great people, passionate from the top down. I want people to be confident in that.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 8:45 AM.
