It’s time to give every South Carolina voter the chance to vote safely by mail

The South Carolina General Assembly returns May 12 for a three-day session, and this provides an opportunity for our lawmakers to make all South Carolinians safer when we vote during the 2020 elections.

Whether it’s in June or November, requiring voters to come together in large numbers in polling places — while the world continues to deal with a global pandemic — is unwise and unnecessary.

Fortunately, our state already has a safe and secure way to address this: we can do so by simply expanding our existing absentee voting system to include all voters. This would give everyone a choice between voting on Election Day in person, voting earlier in person or voting by mail.

Marci Andino, the executive director of the South Carolina Election Commission, outlined this approach along with some other options in a March 30 letter to Gov. Henry McMaster, Senate President Harvey Peeler and House Speaker Jay Lucas. And in an April 6 letter to McMaster, Peeler and Lucas, our county election officials also came out strongly in support of universal access to voting by mail.

We know that the South Carolina system of voting by mail is secure.

Voters must request by phone, email or regular mail that a ballot be sent through the U. S. Postal Service to the address at which they are registered to vote. The ballot can then be returned to the appropriate election office by mail or in person.

This system has worked well for many years.

It has been a safe alternative to in-person voting for South Carolina’s voters, and expanding this proven option will protect South Carolina’s voters.

Unfortunately, some are opposed to voting by mail because they believe that it somehow gives an advantage to an opposing party, even though a recent study by Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research clearly refuted this myth. The fact is that voting by mail has neutral partisan effects, and expanding it in South Carolina would not be an advantage or disadvantage to either major political party.

However, there is an aspect of expanding our absentee options that does have the potential to affect election outcomes. The Brennan Center reports that polls show nearly 80% of Americans — including a majority from both major parties — want a mail ballot option this November. Quite simply this means that voters would be inclined to support those legislators who work to protect safe access to the ballot.

We encourage voters to let their legislators know that they want and expect expanded access to absentee voting options. We encourage all voters to visit scvotes.org to find full information on existing absentee options and the procedures needed to participate in our elections safely. And we encourage all South Carolinians who are eligible to vote by mail to do so.

We are working to expand the number of voters who will be eligible to vote by mail, and the General Assembly should make this a reality when it returns to work next week.

Christe McCoy Lawrence and Holley Ulbrich are co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.