Trump won big in this SC county. Why does local GOP want ‘exhaustive’ election audit?
The Lexington County GOP passed a resolution this week calling for a “full comprehensive and exhaustive” forensic audit of the county’s 2020 election results, despite heavy Republican wins in the county last November, including by former President Donald Trump.
The three-page resolution, provided to The State, asks that the Lexington County Legislative Delegation have an “actionable plan for the audit” within 30 days of receiving the resolution. The delegation includes five state senators and nine House members.
In part, the resolution requests an audit of ballots, voting equipment and paper ballots used in the 2020 general election.
“The people have the right to have a full forensic audit of the 2020 election,” the resolution said. “The task of ensuring free and fair elections falls on the South Carolina Legislature.”
State Election Commission Spokesman Chris Whitmire said the commission has no evidence that 2020 election results are inaccurate or votes were switched from Trump to President Joe Biden last fall.
Neither Republican State House leaders nor the South Carolina Republican Party have called for an audit of the 2020 results since the election almost a year ago.
In the traditionally red Lexington County, Trump won about 64% of the vote to Biden’s roughly 34%.
The resolution, which will be sent to the state Republican Party, claims voter rolls have not been sufficiently cleaned, which the Lexington County GOP believes could have allowed for illegal votes to be cast.
“Republicans across the board 100% support fair and secure elections, where one person equals one vote,” said Lexington County GOP chairman Craig Caldwell said in a statement. “For the most, we did things right in South Carolina — even President Trump said that on ‘Hannity’ (on Fox News) after the election.
“Restoring confidence in our elections, whether that be from cleaning up voter rolls, random precinct audits, or requiring photo ID for absentee ballots, should be a priority. Hopefully the State Election Commission will provide some answers on everything here soon.”
Whitmire said several steps are taken to ensure accuracy in elections. That includes making sure the number of ballots cast is equal to the number of voters who participated in the election. It also means having county boards of election perform hand count audits of ballots in precincts randomly selected by the state election commission to make sure the counts match what tabulation machines reported.
“That way you’re going back to what the voter actually looked at,” Whitmire said.
Every time counties have gone through this process, the hand audits have matched the results.
For the upcoming 2022 elections, an independent third party will verify the results of South Carolina’s statewide elections by tabulating votes with images of every ballot cast. The state also will take a sample of ballots in an election to perform a hand count to see if they are consistent with the reported results, Whitmire said.
How did Trump do in South Carolina?
Despite Trump’s reelection loss, the former president won South Carolina with more than 55% of the vote to Biden’s roughly 43%.
Meanwhile, of more than 88,000 voters who cast straight-party tickets in Lexington County, about 69% were Republican and about 30% Democrat.
In 2016, Trump carried 65% of the vote in Lexington County, while Democrat Hillary Clinton received 29% of the vote.
Republicans in other races also did well in South Carolina last November. Republicans gained five seats in the state General Assembly in the 2020 election and flipped a congressional seat red.
Since the 2020 election, calls to audit election results surged across the country as Trump and his allies made unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud, particularly in key battleground states, such as Arizona and Georgia, where Trump lost.
Last month, a six-month audit of Arizona’s election results presented by firm Cyber Ninjas found no proof of fraud and found that Biden ultimately won by 360 more votes than what the certified official results showed last year.
“We haven’t learned anything new,” said Matt Masterson, a top U.S. election security official in the Trump administration, according to The Associated Press. “What we have learned from all this is that the Ninjas were paid millions of dollars, politicians raised millions of dollars and Americans’ trust in democracy is lower.”
Some GOP criticism of audit
The Lexington County GOP’s request for an audit calls for only “qualified and certified and nationally recognized forensic auditing companies,” like Allied Security Operations Group and Cyber Ninjas, to be contacted.
Laura Scharr, who has alleged election fraud in South Carolina, last month made a presentation to the Lexington County GOP. She claimed that Biden’s vote totals were inflated and that some Trump votes were flipped to Biden.
“South Carolina had an algorithm running to get more popular votes overall to Biden, not necessarily let Biden win,” Scharr said. “This was to make him seem more popular, so it seems more believable. And guess what, I believe it’s just to gradually increase these votes so that they can eventually flip us blue.”
Republicans successfully kept a signature requirement on absentee ballots in place after Democrats tried to have it removed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The state already has a voter ID law.
State Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick said he served on a Republican National Committee’s ballot integrity committee and South Carolina already does most of what the committee has recommended.
“We didn’t have the problems they had in other states,” McKissick said. “I think here in South Carolina we got it right.”
State Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, criticized the efforts calling for an audit, which ultimately won’t change any outcomes in the state. She also complimented Lexington County for traditionally running clean elections and said any audit, no matter who pays for it, would not be a wise way to spend money.
“We’re still just stirring the pot when we can be working for the better good,” Shealy said. “This it what we accused the Democratic Party of doing — worrying about what happened in the last election for four years. Let’s just get to work starting working toward the next election.”
State Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, who serves as chairman of the Lexington County delegation in the State House declined comment on the resolution or the local party’s efforts.
“I’ll take a look at it, whenever I get it,” Caskey said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 6, 2021 at 11:30 AM.
