BIG STORY: Senate to consider election reforms next week

By Andy Brack  |  After a weekend nudge from GOP Gov. Henry McMaster, state senators next week are expected to take up broad election reforms spurred in part by the 2020 election results.

On Sunday, McMaster offered a newspaper commentary that strongly encouraged lawmakers in the Republican-led Senate to debate election reforms passed earlier by the House.  On Tuesday, senators voted to put the bill on special order to be taken up on the floor no earlier than Wednesday.  

The bill, H. 4919, calls for changes that may expand voting, such as a two-week period of early voting.  But the bill would also limit excuses for mail-in voting and require more identification and information for absentee ballots. It also calls for a stop to “ballot harvesting,” which many majority parties worry about because the practice allows people, such as political organizers, to witness lots of absentee ballot applications.

But the election proposal also calls for regular and routine audits of ballots to “confirm the integrity of elections conducted on the state and local level,” as the governor explained.  This call for audits is a common Republican response across the country following wails that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, despite reams of evidence to the contrary.

Election analysts routinely say there’s no proof that fraudulent elections happen in South Carolina. But the call for audits, despite being rooted as a way to address the political fear of unexpected results, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is, rather, something perhaps suggested  for the wrong reason, said the League of Women Voters of South Carolina’s Lynn Teague.

“South Carolina’s elections are generally well-managed and fair,” she said.  “They are not in need of massive reform.  The League supports audits, has always supported audits, to identify technical issues and to reassure the public, all of the public.”

She said the League has never found evidence of fraud in elections it has audited, but it has found “user error” among the election day staffers who use machines and their software. 

“Audits don’t just expose outright fraud,” Teague said. “They expose the much more common issues around election processes and equipment.”

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