SC election poll workers to see pay boost

S.C. poll workers will see their Election Day pay increase for the first time in a decade.

Poll workers for state and county elections will get $75 a day, up from $60. That pay boost, which will cost the state $300,000 a year, was agreed to as part of a budget deal reached last week by S.C. House and Senate negotiators.

“Poll managers are essential to conducting good elections,” said Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the S.C. Election Commission, adding, “It’s up to them to carry out the democratic process.”

Poll workers often work 12 to 15 hours on election days, meaning their hourly pay will remain below minimum wage.

“It’s hard work,” Whitmire said. “They work long, hard days.”

The pay bump will help thousands of S.C. residents who work at the polls on Election Day. For the 2016 presidential election, more than 15,000 workers monitored polling locations across the state, according to the Election Commission.

Those workers often are retirees, Whitmire said. Others are high school students.

“Whatever pay increase that they get is well worth it and well deserved,” he said.

State House races

▪  Republican Richard Cash won the state Senate’s District 3 special election in Anderson on Tuesday. Cash, who previously ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, faced only a write-in opponent, taking nearly 82 percent of the vote. Cash will succeed Kevin Bryant, now lieutenant governor. Bryant was elected to that post by his Senate colleagues after Henry McMaster became governor – succeeding Gov. Nikki Haley when President Donald Trump named her ambassador to the United Nations.

▪  Aiken County Council chairman Ronnie Young won the special election in House District 84. The Republican, who took 58.5 percent of the vote, replaces former Republican state Rep. Chris Corley, who resigned after being indicted on criminal domestic violence charges of beating his wife.

▪  Four Democrats and two Republicans have filed to run in the special election to replace state Rep. Harold Mitchell, D-Spartanburg. Democrats Mo Abusaft, Angela Geter, Rosalyn Henderson Myers and Jerome Rice Jr. all are vying for Mitchell’s House District 31 seat. Republicans Michael Fowler and Richard Gosnell, also are seeking the House seat.

Covfefe tweets of the week

S.C. pols are weighing in on President Trump’s mysterious “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” tweet.

“COVFEFE: I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was Russian slang for ‘I fooled y’all.’ @realDonaldTrump”

— State Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, whose tweet included a crying-laughing emoji and an emoji of a man shrugging his shoulders

In response to a Tweet that House and Senate negotiators could have reached a budget deal, state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston, tweeted: “House conferees like (curious-face emoji, curious-face emoji, curious-face emoji) ...” Rep. Gary Simrill, R-York, replied: “#ConfereeCovfefe”

“Can you imagine what it’s going to be like trying to explain Twitter in, like, 20 years?”

— State Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, tweeted with an emoji he described as a man banging his head on the desk. (That emoji is like the palm-to-face emoji but harder, Caskey explained.) Caskey’s Tweet included former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s tweet: “People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe”

This story was originally published June 3, 2017 at 9:59 AM with the headline "SC election poll workers to see pay boost."