It’s not just NC. Election fraud happens in SC, too — and it can involve crack
One voter sold a vote for crack.
That is what investigators were told about a small S.C. town election in 2015. A man gave the voter a piece of crack cocaine in exchange for casting an absentee ballot for a candidate for mayor in McColl, and then gave the voter a ride to the Marlboro County election office, as reported at the time by WMBF TV in Myrtle Beach.
Another voter said he was offered a 12-ounce Bud Light and $20 for his vote for mayor of the town of 2,500, a mile and a half from the North Carolina border. The accused vote-buyer even witnessed his absentee ballot, the station reported from an affidavit in the case.
Two brothers, ultimately, were charged with conspiracy and procuring or offering to procure votes by bribery.
The case is similar to accusations of vote-tampering that have roiled a North Carolina race for Congress. Accusations that a Bladen County political operative hired people to illegally gather absentee ballots have thrown November’s results into doubt in the 9th District race for the U.S. House, where Republican Mark Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes.
Election watchers fear some of those ballots may have been altered or discarded to favor the Republican candidate.
As officials try to determine what happened in the 9th District, the N.C. board of elections twice has declined to certify the contest’s results.
The controversy has S.C. election officials reminding Palmetto State voters to guard their ballots and be careful about who they trust with their vote.
“We hear claims like this a lot, and we always say, ‘You have to report it to law enforcement,’ ” said Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the S.C. Election Commission.
In South Carolina, there are strict rules about who is allowed to request and handle an absentee ballot. If a voter doesn’t apply for a ballot, the application must come from an immediate family member or an “authorized representative” if the voter “qualifies because of illness or disability,” according to SCVotes.org.
For someone other than a voter or a family member to return a ballot, both the voter and the authorized representative have to complete an authorization form from their county election office. Candidates and campaign officials are prohibited from handling the ballot of someone they aren’t related to.
“If it’s the candidate’s spouse, they can turn it in,” Whitmire said. “But not the neighbor across the street.”
Despite those restrictions, cases of tampering with absentee ballots still come up.
In 2014, a candidate for Dillon County Council was accused of giving voters chicken bog in exchange for their votes, Florence station WPDE reported.
And, in 1980, 36 residents of Dillon County, including local elected officials, were convicted of vote-buying charges involving absentee ballots in a party primary, UPI reported at the time. The case was prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney Henry McMaster, now South Carolina’s governor.
Absentee voting in South Carolina only is allowed if you can’t make it to your polling place on Election Day for one of a list of reasons prescribed in state law.
Whitmire recommends absentee voters cast their ballot in person early at their county election office. If that’s not possible, a voter should get their ballot through the mail, and return it the same way or — to be certain it arrives intact and on time — hand in the ballot themselves at their county election office.
This story was originally published December 20, 2018 at 5:00 AM.
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