By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | Thousands of voters stood in lines and continued to request mail-in ballots this week as county election offices faced a busy first week of in-person absentee voting.
Many election offices also started training thousands of new poll workers, who will see their very first Election Day Nov. 3.
“There is no norm now for this year. Our norms went out the window back in June,” Greenville County Board of Voter Registration & Elections Director Conway Belangia said.
The state Election Commission reported Friday morning the state is averaging 21,000 in-person absentee voters daily and that 84,000 have voted so far. In 2016, where 2.1 million ballots were cast, the state saw 370,000 in-person absentee ballots.
The state has also received 480,000 mail-in ballot requests, and issued 420,000 of those ballots so far. In 2016, 140,000 mail-in ballots were counted.
Here is a look at how election offices across the state are faring so far:
In-person absentee sees some lines, hiccups
Some voters saw long lines to vote in-person absentee, which began Monday, but that wasn’t a rule across the state. In-person absentee voting is where voters go to a central location, usually their county office, and cast ballots on machines. The votes are stored and ready for digital uploading on Election Day.
Belangia said the first three days of in-person absentee voting in Greenville County saw 600 voters each day. Wait times edged three hours on Monday, but decreased to about 90 minutes by midweek.
Charleston County election director Joe Debney said the first day of in-person absentee voting brought more ballots than the entire first week of in-person absentee voting in 2016. More than 1,200 people voted each day in the first part of the week, he said.
The county has been processing in-person absentee ballots at the North Charleston Coliseum. The county has plans to open three other locations on Oct. 19. Waits for in-person absentee voting have been fewer than 30 minutes, Debney said.
“It’s not our first rodeo. We have led the state in absentee voting since 2014,” he said. “We’ve got our processes and procedures down.”
Jasper County’s election director, Jeanine Bostick, reported voters were “steadily” coming into vote in-person absentee, with 166 voters Monday and 178 Tuesday.
“That is more than usual. Sometimes when we open absentee, we don’t get the first voter until the middle of the month,” Bostick said.
Marlboro County’s election director, Lori Moses, said her office has been busy since Monday, which saw about 200 in-person absentee voters. On Wednesday, the ballot printer wouldn’t print, causing some hiccups. It was fixed later in the day.
Voters confused on witness signature requirement
Mail-in absentee ballots require a witness signature to be counted. This requirement was challenged several weeks ago, leading to a back-and-forth where judges struck the requirement and reinstated it. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the requirement stands.
“Four different rulings in the past two weeks has been a real rollercoaster ride; there was tons of confusion,” Greenville County’s Belangia said. He said his office has urged: “Don’t take the chance, just get the witness signature.” Debney of Charleston County said the conflicting rulings have been his office’s “biggest” source of voter confusion.
But directors in smaller counties said the confusion has been less of an issue for them.
“All the voters in Laurens County have been having their witness signature signed anyway,” election director Lynne West said. “We don’t usually have to throw many ballots out anyway with nonwitness signatures. Our voters are just used to doing that and they do it.”
Lots of people signed up to work polls for first time
National headlines have warned about a possible poll worker shortage for the general election over fears that the most poll workers tend to be older, a key demographic at risk in the pandemic. But South Carolina’s counties don’t appear to be suffering from any shortages.
West said her “core group” of poll workers will still show up on Election Day, but that the county will have “a bunch of new folks.” She said her county is preparing for an 80 to 90 percent voter turnout, and will have the poll workers necessary to support that.
In April, the state Election Commission added a link to its homepage to help recruit poll workers. Counties around the state said that has helped.
Bostick of Jasper County said her office is at its maximum for poll workers.
“We still have people calling want to work,” she said. “It is a presidential (election) and the word has gotten out a lot of the seasoned poll workers don’t want to work because of COVID-19.”
Greenville County has 2,600 poll workers signed up,
“Greenville County citizens have stepped up to the plate: we have a full complement of poll workers who are getting trained,” Belangia said. “It’s going to make things a whole lot easier for us.”
He said he was “tickled” that so many signed up, but he also has concerns that “these people are not seasoned election officials … It’s going to be a learning experience for a lot of people.”
West said all poll workers in Laurens County will be able to receive two hands-on training sessions thanks to a grant. Bostick said her office is training poll workers every weekend through Oct. 24 to prepare.
Some counties are supplementing the pay poll workers get ($165) with grants.
“I guess you could say they’re taking a chance,” Belangia said of running polls in a pandemic. “We’re going to supplement their pay because of that.”
Processing mail-in ballots could cause delays
Charleston County’s Debney said his county will not have election results from mail-in ballots by the end of Election Day. The county was unable to open and process all of the mail-in ballots in 2016 and 2018 before midnight, either.
“The expectation needs to be set now that, because of the increase in paper ballots South Carolina has received, you will not have all those ballots counted on election night,” he said.
In South Carolina, ballots cannot be opened and counted until 7 a.m. on election day.
“Just the logistics of that makes it really tough,” Debney said.
Charleston County mailed more than 53,000 ballots in its first round, Debney said. To put that in perspective, the total number of mail-in ballots processed in 2016 was about 16,000.
But other counties — big and small — don’t share Debney’s concern.
Belangia of Greenville County said his office has sent nearly 32,000 ballots through the mail so far. He said he expects as many as 60,000 to return by Nov. 3.
“We have our system where we’ll get them done by 8:30 or 9 at night,” he said, adding some extra workers will be in the election office helping to open up ballots.
While Moses of Marlboro County said her office was experiencing some difficulties for sending out about the requested 2,000 mail-in ballots. She said the office was working on sending out ballots.
But she said there should be no problem counting mail-in ballots on Election Day.
“We have an eight-member board and they deputized some extra people to help them open and count,” Moses said. “I think we’ll be OK.”
Bostick of Jasper County said her office also doesn’t foresee any problems for counting ballots by midnight.
“You don’t see a problem but Murphy’s Law,” she said, referring to the adage of “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
Patience urged
The biggest issue foreseen for Election Day, predicted by multiple county directors, appears to be an expectation for the same voter frustrations aired on Election Day as any other Election Day.
“The only thing that brings major hiccups on Election Day is people failing to check their voter information ahead of time, and then they’re angry,” Moses said. “They’re upset but it’s their own fault.”
Belangia also said voter woes in Greenville County on Election Day will likely come from people going to the wrong polling location, forgetting to bring a photo identification and not being registered to vote. And, of course, he said they should expect lines.
“Be patient and don’t blame it all on the poll workers,” he said.
That frustration of dealing with angry voters has not been felt by all, however.
“Everybody in line has been friendly and patient and kind to our poll workers. It’s amazing,” West of Laurens County said. “You hear these horror stories of people getting all agitated but I’m telling you these voters have been so pleasant. They thank us.”
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