Here’s how to ensure your SC ballot is accurately recorded on election day
With the 2024 general election just days away, state election officials say voters have several opportunities to ensure their vote is accurately counted.
“After the voter makes their selections using the ballot-marking device, a review screen appears on the machine that shows all the selections on the ballot,” John Michael Catalano of the State Election Commission said. “The ballot is printed by the ballot-marking device after the voter confirms their selections are correct. If there was a mistake made by the voter on the printed ballot, they can request a new one from a poll manager.”
In addition, Catalano said every ballot-marking device used in an election is publicly tested before being deployed to ensure it is working properly.
“If a voter suspects that a ballot-marking device is not working as it should, they should notify a poll manager immediately so that the equipment can be checked to ensure that there are no issues,” Catalano said.
Earlier this week, a Lexington-Richland 5 school board member reported on her Facebook page that there have been “some instances of voter selections not matching the final review.”
“This has happened on the machine screen and on the printed ballot,” Catherine Huddle said in the Facebook post. “This isn’t a common situation. It doesn’t happen often, but every vote is important,” she continued.
Huddle, who is seeking reelection to a Lexington County seat on the school board, told The State one voter alerted her to a faulty voting machine after the machine printed a ballot that did not reflect the voter’s selections. Huddle was unable to provide a phone number for the voter.
One person replied to Huddle’s post by saying she had experienced the same issue on Monday. Nobody responded to an inquiry from The State Media Co. posted on Huddle’s Facebook page asking for anyone who experienced the problem to contact the newspaper.
Huddle urged voters to pay attention to the final review of their ballots before feeding them into voter machines.
Lexington County elections director Lenice Shoemaker said she’s unaware of any such occurrences, adding that voting machines are thoroughly tested before being made available to the public.
“I’ve never seen that,” Shoemaker said, referring to ballot inconsistencies. “We do serious testing here. If someone has a question about their vote once (it’s) entered into the machine, we can spoil that ballot and get them another one.”
Shoemaker said that voters have an opportunity to review their selections twice before the machine prints a final review of their ballot. Following that, if a voter determines that their selections aren’t correct, the voter can alert a poll worker, who, Shoemaker says, will cancel the voter’s selections and provide them with a new ballot.
Richland County elections director Travis Alexander, likewise, said there have been no reports of faulty voter equipment.
The State Election Commission also has “not found any issue that would cause a ballot-marking device to print any selections on a voter’s ballot other than the ones made by the voter,” Catalano said.
To alleviate voter concerns, each county offers the public an opportunity to test voter machines prior to voting.
Like Catalano and Shoemaker, Alexander advised that voters have two opportunities to review their selections on the voting machine’s screen before printing a final review. If the final review reflects inaccurate selections, he said, they can alert a poll worker who will then spoil that ballot and issue a new one.
Huddle said that while she was at the Midlands Tech voting precinct on Harbison Boulevard in Lexington County on Monday, a voter approached her and said her ballot wasn’t accurate. The voter spoke to Huddle after submitting the ballot to a reader that featured a locked box.
“I was like whoa,” Huddle said in response. “It very well could be human error,” she told The State.
“I am not one of these people who think that the voting machines are messing up, although anything is possible. But I’m just trying to tell people to make sure you check your ballot before you put it in the reader, because if you don’t, it’s too late.”
Huddle said, while she’s been at the Harbison polling location all week, only one voter has alerted her of the error.
“I just think people need to double check (their ballots), because you’re pushing a lot of buttons, and if you miss one, you’re not going to be able to correct it after putting it in the (ballot) reader,” Huddle said.
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 11:58 AM.
