COVID-19 concerns lead Richland County to cut polling places in half for June primary
During a meeting with state lawmakers from Richland County, interim county election director Terry Graham said the county will have to cut the number of polling places nearly in half during the upcoming June primary.
Normally, there are 149 voting precincts across Richland County, but this year, the local election commission will only staff about 70, Graham said.
”It’s not something that I want to do, but due to COVID-19, it was a struggle to get people who usually work for us,” Graham said.
The massive shortage in poll workers is largely caused by concerns over the coronavirus, Graham said. As of Tuesday, Richland County had between 300 and 400 fewer workers than normal for an election of this size.
Graham told members of the county election board that the S.C. Election Commission had offered to call up members of the state National Guard to cover poll worker shortages, but he said only about 150 guardsmen would be available to cover the whole state.
Board chairman Charles Austin encouraged Graham to pursue the extra personnel anyway.
“It might not be to the level we need, but my grandmother would say something about looking a gift horse in the mouth,” Austin said.
Graham said the elections commission was also searching for new polling locations because some that are usually in use are wary of letting members of the public in because of COVID-19.
State lawmakers were concerned about whether voters would receive enough notification of their precincts moving. Graham said the election commission was sending postcards to voters Wednesday morning to notify them and would place signs at old polling locations to point voters to new polling sites.
Voters who qualify to vote absentee are encouraged to take advantage of vote-by-mail options and the possibility of voting in person ahead of June 9. The state Legislature expanded access to absentee voting for both the primary and any potential runoff on June 23, and a federal lawsuit just this week eliminated a requirement that voters get a witness to sign off on their mail-in ballot.
But on Tuesday’s call, lawmakers also expressed concerns about whether Richland County’s elections officials could handle a massive influx of absentee ballots.
As of Tuesday, more than 18,000 voters had requested to vote absentee, Graham said. During the 2016 statewide primary, the office only handled about 10,000 absentee ballots.
Richland County election officials have a poor track record when it comes to absentee ballots. During three elections in the last decade, absentee ballots have been lost.
Last year, former county elections director Rokey Suleman was fired after elections officials failed to count 1,000 ballots from the 2018 midterm election. Plans to hire a consultant after that fiasco fell through because state lawmakers didn’t allocate any money for the hire, and another 70 ballots went missing after February’s Democratic primary and were only counted days later.
Earlier this month, the leading candidate to be Richland County’s new elections director, Tennessee elections official Tammy Smith, walked away from the job after the county election commission declined to negotiate on a new salary for her. Craig Plank, the board’s vice chair, resigned afterwards, saying he had concerns about whether the county would be able to smoothly carry out June’s primary to determine Democratic and Republican nominees for everything from Congress to local offices.
“We’re on track to probably be double or over double,” S.C. Rep. Beth Bernstein said. “Because of what happened in February during the presidential primary … how are we making sure that those type of errors aren’t going to happen June 9?”
Graham said the election commission planned to have ten staffers on hand to open absentee ballot envelopes. They will also have five to ten more staff members on standby to help if needed, he added. In February, elections officials only assigned six staff to help with that process.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 1:48 PM.
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