Richland council approves roll-call voting plan

By a nearly unanimous show of hands, Richland County Council approved a new procedure to require roll-call voting for many items, two months after rejecting a similar roll-call voting proposal.

The new council rule requires a roll-call vote by show of hands for all second- and final-reading votes or one-time votes that are not unanimous and that are not merely procedural, such as votes to approve minutes and resolutions, enter executive session or adjourn a meeting.

Councilman Norman Jackson was the only council member not to raise his hand in favor of or against the measure. By council rules, his vote then falls on the prevailing side, and the measure passed unanimously.

Council’s traditional procedure had been to vote collectively “aye” or “nay” unless a council member called for division on a vote. In those cases, council members raised their hands in favor of or against an issue, and the clerk called out the names of who voted which way.

In May, Councilman Seth Rose proposed that council require roll-call voting on every vote taken. Only Rose and Councilman Greg Pearce voted in favor of that motion.

Some council members received criticism after that vote for what some constituents considered casting a vote against transparency.

Councilman Jim Manning had said at the time that he did not think it was necessary to vote by roll call on each issue taken up by council, many of which are procedural.

Other local governments, including Columbia City Council and Lexington County Council, vote by roll call.

In June, Manning proposed a new “hybrid” procedure of voting by roll call on items that council does not consider procedural.

At Tuesday’s Rules and Appointments committee meeting, Manning noted that council began voting by his proposed procedure several meetings ago and “it’s gone smoothly,” he said.

“It’s been reflected in the minutes,” Manning said in the committee meeting. “It’s interesting to me that I continue to hear from people that we should do this because, if they were paying any attention – either watching, looking on archives or reading our minutes – they would know that we’ve already done it.”

Before the full-council vote, Rose said he would still prefer that roll-call voting be the procedure for every item council takes up.

But, he said, “This amounts to a huge amount of positive change.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 5:48 PM.