At 11 p.m., some Richland residents waited to vote as confusion mars primary

A historic South Carolina primary was marred by widespread confusion at Richland County polling locations on Tuesday, as voters from neighboring wards were combined into understaffed precincts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The result was numerous complaints about long wait times, key races being left off of ballots and voters being given incorrect ballots or shuffled around to different polling sites at the last minute.

Even past 11 p.m. Tuesday night — four hours after polls were supposed to close — more than 100 voters waited in line at Spring Valley High School, and dozens of elderly and handicapped people waited in their cars to vote.

One of those people waiting in line was Dennis Quinn, a realtor who said he normally votes at Spring Valley. Usually, it takes between 15-20 minutes to vote, but on Tuesday, he had been waiting for more than three hours, something he said is “unacceptable.”

Voting was still worth the wait though, Quinn said, because others have sacrificed more for the right to vote.

“Hopefully this is better in November,” Quinn said.

Starting early Tuesday morning, voters at several Richland County polling sites started raising concerns about ballot problems.

One of those voters was Roni Nicole, a Hopkins resident who went to vote with her partner and her mother-in-law around 9:30 a.m. at Horrell Hill Elementary School. Voters from nearby McEntire and Hunting Creek polling sites had been funneled to Horrell Hill.

When Nicole and her mother-in-law entered the voting site, they were given tickets — Nicole’s was orange and her mother-in-law’s was green. Those tickets led them to different ballots, according to Nicole, who couldn’t vote on the House District 80 race between Jimmy Bales and Jermaine Johnson, only the races for sheriff and coroner.

She said she found it strange because their yards adjoin each other, so they assumed they would receive the same ballot.

After that, Nicole’s partner — who lives at the same address as Nicole — voted and he also received a ballot with the House District 80 race on it. Richland County Elections Board member Duncan Buell said it’s possible that Nicole received a ballot meant from a voter in one of the other two wards, which had the unopposed House District 70 race.

A similar issue was reported in another race at a different polling site. The House District 75 candidates were missing from some ballots at the Brockman Elementary polling place.

“We’re not off to the start I’m looking for,” Terry Graham, interim director of Richland County Elections Board, told The State on Tuesday morning.

Those problems became more complicated at places like Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, where three wards around Columbia’s Rosewood neighborhood were sent to vote.

Precinct manager Rusty DePass said he began hearing complaints about ballot problems shortly after noon. That’s when he found that voters from ward 13 were receiving incomplete ballots, he said — some were missing the state senate race from that district while other Republican ballots didn’t have a congressional race on them. DePass said he decided to move to handwritten ballots for ward 13 voters in order to avoid what he perceived to be issues with the voting machines.

He said he turned to handwritten ballots without consulting with the Richland County Election Commission because “they’re so incompetent.” DePass said it’s up to the commission to take the handwritten ballots and manually count them.

Chris Whitmire of the S.C. Election Commission said precinct managers have the authority to create and distribute handwritten ballots in emergency situations, but that he did not know if what happened at Kilbourne Park fit that category.

The database on the ballots and voting machines appeared to be working correctly, Whitmire said, and a discrepancy might have been caused by voters in different congressional districts comparing notes because they were cast in a combined precinct.

“I don’t know if there really was an issue,” Whitmire said. “The precinct manager may have caused a problem with voters casting ballots in races they should not have.”

Whitmire said he expects the handwritten ballots to be certified and counted by Richland County, so long as those voters were entitled to vote in the races they marked on their handwritten ballots.

“It’s an issue for Richland County to sort out,” Whitmire said. “Normally once a ballot goes in the box, you count it.”

There were complicating factors at every level, he said. Poll managers might not have been used to the volume of voters they encountered on Tuesday. Also, new poll managers were hired to help fill the pandemic-related staff shortage, and they might not have the experience to deal with the issues they faced, Whitmire said.

Additionally, voters might not have been aware of changes, and gone to polling sites with split lines for different districts, causing more confusion, especially when some lines were already longer because of social distancing mandates.

Whitmire said he does not recommend combining polling places for the general election in November, but said this experience will help election officials learn about how to conduct an election during a pandemic.

Even for longtime voters and poll workers, Tuesday was a day of firsts. For some, it was their first time voting on new machines, which Richland County rolled out last fall. For others, there was a new challenge of navigating unfamiliar and combined polling places.

And there was the ever-present subtext: the continuing outbreak of COVID-19 in South Carolina. Voters stood six feet apart, waiting for hours in some places, such as North Springs Community Center in Columbia, where the line wrapped around the building throughout Tuesday afternoon.

Lines stretched out into the summer sun as voters attempted to keep six or more feet between them, per recommendations from health experts. Voters were also advised to wear face masks and bring their own pens. The number of curbside voters also increased in some places, such as at River Springs Church in Irmo, where about 40 people had voted from their vehicles by 5 p.m.

The virus threat also caused major delays in Colleton County, where a voter who claimed to be infected with COVID-19 planned to use curbside voting. The person pulled up, got out of the car, and announced “I have COVID-19 but I want to vote,” according to Whitmire. It is unclear if the person actually entered the building, he said.

Five poll managers witnessed the event, closed the precinct immediately and left, Whitmire said. That left the state election commission scrambling to get new workers on-site before polls closed at 7 p.m. If they are unable to replace the poll managers, Whitmire said voters might be forced to cast ballots at another precinct.

“It’s a nightmare scenario for election officials,” Whitmire said.

Some other leaders also began weighing the possibility of another election to fix the problems that happened on Tuesday.

“Once we get through everything and find out what is happening, there’s probably going to be another election in some of these areas. We have to determine whether or not people were left off of ballots and/or any legal action that may need to be taken,” said Shaundra Scott, director of voter protection for the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Scott said the Democratic Party reached out to the state election commission and to county election directors to try and mitigate the problems on Tuesday afternoon, before polls closed. Throughout the day, party leaders heard about voters being ill-notified of changes to their polling places, or receiving incorrect ballots or ones without House districts 75 and 80 on them.

The South Carolina GOP heard similar reports from voters in Columbia. In part of Richland County that includes the 2nd congressional district, candidate Joe Wilson’s name was left off of ballots, party spokesperson Claire Robinson told The State. Part of Wilson’s district wraps around Columbia.

Robinson also said that some voters were told they didn’t need to cast votes for Sen. Lindsey Graham until the November general election.

Richland County elections leaders said Graham, the interim director, made sure ballots had all of the candidates listed that should appear, and were in proper order. Charles P. Austin Sr., chair of Richland County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, said the board will look into what went wrong after Graham approved the ballots.

The board will also undertake “extensive and intensive training and retraining for poll workers and clerks,” and try to get to the root of the other reported problems in preparation for November, Austin said. He did not say why those measures weren’t already in place for Tuesday’s primary.

Austin said he wants a pool of 1,500 workers and clerks at the ready by Election Day in November, but that he would advise against consolidating precincts then if possible.

State Representative Beth Bernstein of Richland County said her “frustration and fear” about what could happen on primary day came true on Tuesday. She had previously sounded the alarm on issues that could affect voters.

“It’s frustrating,” she told The State. “A county of our size and our resources should not continually be having these types of problems. COVID did throw a monkey wrench in all of this. However, we should not have seven elections directors in seven years. That’s unacceptable.”

This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 7:17 PM.