Richland County names new elections director after tumultuous year for office
Richland County has named its next elections director after a tumultuous year for the office.
The county’s Board of Voter Registration & Elections named Travis Alexander as the new director of county elections, it announced at a meeting April 6. Alexander currently works for the State Election Commission.
The county’s previous elections director, Alexandria Stephens, unexpectedly and without giving reason resigned from her position in August. Her deputy, Terry Graham at that time also announced he would resign from the elections office after Nov. 8. A third official also resigned in August. Graham ended up staying in his position to oversee the November general election and a special city council election in March.
The Richland County elections office has been under scrutiny for a solid decade, dating back to the 2012 presidential election debacle when there were too few voting machines and many voters waited for hours in long lines late into the night.
In Nov. 2021, several precincts had trouble getting voting machines operational.
For the June 2020 primary, the office reportedly had too few poll workers, long lines and hours-long waits at some precincts.
In 2019, Gov. Henry McMaster dismantled the county elections board after more than 1,000 ballots were lost in the 2018 election. That issue also led to the resignation of the elections office’s then-director, Rokey Suleman, part of a still-ongoing string of leadership turnover in the office.
