Richland County hopes runoff election goes much smoother than primary. Here’s how
As Richland County prepares to conduct its second election in as many weeks, officials are eager to avoid the long lines, confusion and other problems that marred last week’s primary.
Last week, Richland County voters stood in line for up to five hours to cast a ballot in South Carolina’s Democratic and Republican primaries. Once they did get the chance to vote, many found they received the wrong ballot without the race they wanted to vote in, or — thanks to different polling places in this election — found themselves in the wrong precinct line all together.
In the aftermath of the June 9 primary, the S.C. Election Commission announced it would take a stepped-up role overseeing four Democratic runoffs for Richland County Council seats on June 23.
“People voting at midnight is just unacceptable,” said Chris Whitmire with the S.C. Election Commission, of the long delays some polling places saw after they should have closed at 7 p.m. “It’s inspiring that people would do that and stay so long, but it shouldn’t be that way.”
Whitmire himself is leading some retraining classes for poll workers this week, hoping to avoid the issues that caused such a backup at some polling places last week. He said many new poll workers had to be signed up for the June 9 poll, and because of COVID-19 fears, they were only able to be trained through an online course.
“They were in a tough situation,” Whitmire said. “They had the resources that we gave them.”
Poll workers may have an easier time in the runoffs since next Tuesday’s election will take place in fewer polling places. Only voters in four out of Richland County’s 11 council districts have runoffs to vote in, after no candidate won a majority in the June 9 primary. The top two candidates in each of the four races must face off in a runoff.
Voters in the runoffs will go to the same polling places they visited on June 9. A shortage of poll workers due to fears of coronavirus caused the county to consolidate several polling places into one, leading to confusion among some voters about where they were supposed to go.
“If you move them now, that would just cause more confusion, because they’ve already received a card in the mail and been told one time to go here,” Whitmire said. “So they will all be (voting) in the same place.”
The county is also reaching out to more volunteers to work the polls next Tuesday.
“We got a whole lot of response” to the call for more poll workers, said interim Richland County election director Terry Graham. Election officials won’t be able to use some of the new volunteers for Tuesday’s runoff, he said, but they’ll be available for November’s general election.
State officials will also be overseeing the programming and distribution of voting machines, to ensure voters receive the correct ballots for the correct races this time. Representatives of the state election commission will also oversee the counting of absentee ballots on election night.
Anyone who voted in the Democratic primary on June 9 is eligible to vote next Tuesday, as are any registered voters who did not cast a ballot. Voters in the June 9 Republican primary can’t vote in next week’s Democratic primary runoffs. None of the Republican primaries required runoffs.
Reporter Sarah Ellis contributed.
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