How far will SC go to permanently expand — or tighten — voter access? Lawmakers debate
Following a year when a global pandemic drove record turnout among absentee voters and unfounded claims of voter fraud dominated headlines and airwaves, state lawmakers have introduced a flurry of bills aimed at changing the way South Carolinians vote.
While Democrats would like to make absentee voting without an excuse permanent law, Republicans, who control both legislative chambers and the governor’s office, instead are pushing bills they say would increase the integrity of the state’s elections.
The attempt by Democratic and Republican legislators in South Carolina is part of a national trend by political parties to seize on the unprecedented turnout in last year’s presidential election between now former President Donald Trump and the November winner, President Joe Biden.
That turnout came with dozens of allegations of voter fraud, raised by the Trump campaign and allies, that ultimately failed to sway courts in the former president’s favor. But those allegations also drove cries for election security reforms, the seeds of which are showing up in statehouses across the country.
The Brennan Center for Justice has recorded 33 states so far that have proposed 165 bills that would restrict voting access.
The trend of election-related bills also underscores how partisan voting issues have become after unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud followed Democrats winning in key battleground states that have traditionally fallen to Republicans.
“The past year has certainly colored the response in a very partisan way to this,” said Lynn Teague, with the League of Women Voters in South Carolina. “It’s become more polarized, more partisan.”
Lawmakers aim to make elections uniform
On both sides of the political aisle, South Carolina lawmakers have filed more than 30 proposals that would change voting in the state: from imposing term limits and eliminating straight-party voting — both unlikely to pass — to a bill filed by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, that would in part expand the State Election Commission board to give House and Senate leaders more say in who joins, not just the governor.
Proposals to change the state agency that oversees elections follow a dust up between that agency’s chief and lawmakers last year over how best to ensure access to the ballot in a pandemic.
On Thursday, a South Carolina House panel will hold its first hearing on elected-related bills, including the speaker’s, House bill 3444.
Lucas’ proposal would expand the State Election Commission board to eight members up from five, and it would change the way members are appointed. Currently, the governor appoints the five members. Under Lucas’ bill, the governor would appoint four people, of whom no more than two could be members of the governor’s political party. But the proposal also would give the Legislature more power over the board, allowing the Senate president and the House speaker say in appointing two members each, two of whom must be from the minority political party.
The bill also restricts who can be appointed to the board, including former lawmakers within eight years of service and families.
A buried provision in the legislation, and one its sponsor and advocates say is the most important, would reel in county boards.
The speaker’s bill would give the State Election Commission and the agency’s chief more power and supervision over the state’s county board of elections and voter registration offices and ensure, they say, those boards are complying with state and federal law and the procedures outlined by the state’s election agency.
“This is a bill that essentially tries to promote uniformity among the counties,” Lucas told The State Tuesday. “What we found during the litigation this summer and into the fall was that South Carolina counties did not follow the same rules with regard to voting. I think it’s critical that a vote in Greenville should be exactly the same cast in Darlington County. ... Really, all this bill tries to do is make sure election’s don’t vary by county.”
Lucas said it is not that “radical” of a change and probably among “the most boring bills that the committee will take up.”
Proposed election changes
The state’s Democratic Party leader Trav Robertson and Republican Party leader Drew McKissick said more uniformity is needed.
They also agreed that third-party candidates should pay a filing fee to avoid giving them a “free shot at the ballot,” McKissick said, not just candidates who file to run for the major parties.
Here are some of the proposals that would impact voters at the ballot box:
▪ H. 3268, proposed by state Rep. Kambrell Garvin, D-Richland, for universal early voting, which would expand no-excuse absentee voting to anyone in the state.
▪ H. 3555, proposed by state Rep. Steven Long, R-Spartanburg, to increase the time limit a voter can stand at a voting booth from three to five minutes.
▪ S. 8, proposed by state Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, to make Election Day a state holiday, which supporters argue would make voting easier and more accessible to the public.
Taking aim at a widely used form of absentee voting in 2020, McKissick told The State that mail-in ballots are “a ticking time bomb,” and said he hopes the Legislature will address mail-in voting after the tremendous explosion of mailed ballots last year.
In particular, he proposed reducing the more than a dozen excuses that someone can use to vote absentee and pushing people to vote absentee in person so that county offices can check for a photo ID card.
After fighting for voter ID laws, McKissick said, “Now to see so many folks then moving to a process that doesn’t require that extra security that we added on is a mistake.”
Another proposed change, filed by state Sen. Sandy Senn, R-Charleston, would require voters to verify their voter registration at least every three years or be purged from the registration list. Robertson said he is against that idea.
“That’s just crazy,” he told The State. “It’s a fundamental right to be eligible to vote.”
And McKissick wants to curb “fusion candidates,” candidates who run for multiple parties for the same office.
Robertson, however, says he sees no issue with that.
As a native South Carolinian, Robertson said it “adds to the uniqueness and the character of our state.”
Teague, with the League of Women Voters, said the Legislature needs to take advantage of what it learned last year: expanded access to the ballot box is good for the voter.
“Despite all the noise, it is time someone looks at it in any detail. There’s no partisan advantage by no-excuse absentee voting,” Teague said, pointing to the legislative and presidential success the Republicans, in particular, had last year. “People of both parties use these things. Clearly in the pandemic it was more open. But I think the public showed it really loved being able to vote early.”
The Governor’s Office told The State there is no reason to expand absentee voting during “normal times.”
“It was necessary last year, but it isn’t anymore and hopefully won’t be ever again,” said McMaster’s spokesman, Brian Symmes.
Election commission targeted
Last summer, as positive COVID-19 cases were rising, the state’s election chief called on legislators to do more to ensure voter safety.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, executive director Marci Andino asked lawmakers to consider giving election officials more time to process mail-in ballots, to allow voters to apply for absentee ballots online and to remove the requirement for absentee voters to get a witness to sign their ballot envelopes, which critics said put voters at risk of catching COVID-19.
“The 2020 election cycle was a challenging and stressful environment for all stakeholders in the election process. ... It was our job to help navigate those challenges while maintaining the safety and security of voters and confidence in the integrity of the election,” said Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the State Election Commission. “The State Election Commission is a creature of the Legislature with no authority to change how elections are conducted. Our purpose is to manage and support elections according to the laws of the state.”
The letters, Whitmire said, “were intended to provide some clarity amid the confusion by ensuring all stakeholders were aware of the specific challenges and potential solutions.”
Teague’s group endorsed the proposal, but Republican leaders were reportedly not on board.
After a federal judge ordered the temporary removal of the witness signature requirement, ping-ponging court cases ensued, eventually landing in the U.S. Supreme Court, which overruled the federal judge’s order.
“Yes, there were lawsuits in 2020; but the stakes are high in elections, and for better or worse, lawsuits have become part of the process,” Whitmire said. “In fact, there have been lawsuits in every election cycle in the past 10 years.”
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said there is frustration, though, with that lawsuit.
“That letter then became the basis of the lawsuit, and it sure seemed to many of us like the (State Election) commission was willing to cooperate with lawsuits, even those things were in opposition to state law,” said Massey, rumored to be interested in running for governor in 2022.
Massey has proposed stripping the State Election Commission of all its election duties, handing it over to the Secretary of State’s Office. Massey told The State he does not necessarily think that is the best way to handle it, but he wants to start a conversation.
When asked whether he believes the election agency needs a new director, Massey said yes, along with new board members.
“I’m trying to get a conversation going, and I want to talk about it to review what went right and what went wrong,” Massey said.
Handing those charges to the secretary of state, an elected partisan office, may not be a popular idea.
The General Assembly formed the State Election Commission in 1968 “as an independent state agency to remove control of the state’s elections from a partisan, elected official,” said Whitmire, the elections spokesman.
The driving principle, he added, was the idea that having elections run by “nonpartisan election professionals is essential to the conduct of fair and impartial elections in South Carolina.”
Teague, the voting rights advocate, agrees.
“We don’t want to lose that,” she said.
Asked whether the governor has confidence in leadership at the State Election Commission, McMaster’s spokesman Symmes said, “The governor expects members of the Election Commission to review decisions made by staff last year to determine what, if any, corrective actions need to be taken.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
