By Seanna Adcox 

COLUMBIA — Early voting for the upcoming primaries kicks off May 31 across South Carolina under a new law celebrated by leaders in both parties as making it easier to cast a ballot while assuring it’s counted correctly.  

The law ceremoniously signed May 18 by Gov. Henry McMaster creates two weeks of true, no-excuse-needed early voting for every election, starting with the June primaries. It keeps voting absentee by mail as an option with a few additional rules, but only for those who can’t show up in person. The allowed list includes people with disabilities, those 65 and older, military personnel, and vacationers gone for the entire voting span.  

“We wanted in South Carolina to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” said its sponsor, former House Speaker Jay Lucas, who stepped down when the session ended last week. 

The Hartsville Republican stressed that unlike in neighboring Georgia where post-2020 election law changes brought national protests, South Carolina legislators worked together to pass a bill unanimously in both chambers.

State Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson also applauded the bipartisan creation. 

“This bill represents a group of people, Democrats and Republicans, coming together to work for what is right and for the best interest to preserve our democracy, and I want to say, ‘Thank you,’” he said. While not perfect, he said the legislation is “one of the cleanest bills to come out of this General Assembly.”

What’s in it?   

Other changes in the law include giving election officials an additional day before polls open to examine and open the outer envelopes of mailed or hand-delivered absentee ballots, which “means we won’t be counting ballots days and days after election day,” said Rep. Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, who shepherded the bill through negotiations. 

The law also brings some uniformity statewide to the early voting process, while still providing some local flexibility.

Counties can designate up to seven early-voting centers.

During the primaries, all of them must stay open from at least 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday for the two weeks before polls open. (Holidays are excluded, which is why they won’t open Memorial Day.)

They must open longer and for two additional days during November general elections: two Mondays through Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

The law also requires post-election audits to ensure results spit out by a machine match voters’ intention.

It’s a provision applauded by the League of Women Voters.

While the voting-rights group doesn’t think widespread voter fraud is an issue, as some fear, “we do believe it’s important that voters have confidence in elections, and this can give confidence the election was in fact delivering the results voters intended,” said Lynn Teague with the group’s South Carolina chapter. 

Audits “make sure nothing went wrong in all of that complicated system and, if there are people yelling, ‘My guy didn’t win. I think it was fraud,’ you have a sound, rock-solid answer to that,” she said. “When we lose confidence in our elections, we’ve lost ability to function as a representative democracy.”

State law has long allowed a de facto version of early voting.

Previously, people could vote absentee either by mail or at county offices ahead of the election, but they had to select a reason for being unable to vote on Election Day. Legislators temporarily changed that in 2020 due to the pandemic, allowing every registered voter to cast a ballot early without needing an excuse — or being forced to lie.

For the first time in South Carolina, more people voted absentee than on Election Day in November 2020. But those changes died with that election.

A time crunch

The bill making no-excuse-needed early voting permanent actually became law when McMaster signed it May 13, one day after the Legislature finalized the compromise. Election officers around the state welcomed the change.

“Every single registered voter can vote early. That is monumental. That should be celebrated across the entire state as a huge win for the voter,” said Isaac Cramer, director of the Charleston County Board of Elections and legislative chairman of the state Association of Registration and Election Officials. 

“For election officials, this is a huge win for us too,” he said. “It is a big victory for everyone.”

The timing of the law’s passage means election officials must move quickly to comply with the changes. 

Cramer said his group urged legislators to make it take effect immediately, rather than wait for November. Otherwise, under prior law, people voting in-person absentee could not have used the same machines as voters at the polls on primary day. 

“They would not like that. They’d say, ‘What happened to the way we did it before’” in 2020, Cramer said. “The counties across the state all agreed we wanted early voting enacted before the June primary.”

While more time to comply would’ve been ideal, he said, “We know we’re capable of doing this before the June primaries.” Besides, he added, some form of the law has been talked about and expected since January. 

The timing means early voting locations will likely be limited for the upcoming election. Charleston County, for example, will open just one for the primary but expects to operate the maximum of seven in November. 

“Early voting will look a lot different in future elections,” said Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the state Election Commission.

Concerns

One of the changes that’s brought concern from voting rights activists is a new limitation on the number of absentee ballots that someone can return in person to their county office. Under the law, a voter can hand-deliver their own and up to five others.

Teague said that could complicate efforts to ensure people in nursing homes, assisted-living centers and other congregate settings get to vote. She called the limitation “pretty pointless,” since state law already banned so-called ballot harvesting of campaign employees or volunteers collecting and returning ballots. 

The law also newly requires that anyone returning a ballot in person to a county election office — whether the voter, a family member or someone else the voter authorizes — show their driver’s license or other form of allowed identification, such as a passport, as people voting on Election Day must do. 

The five-ballot limitation was a compromise between allowing only immediate family members to return an absentee ballot and the initial House version, which capped it at 10.     

“The point is, we don’t mind people helping their neighbors, their family members, return a ballot. But when someone’s doing 50, 100, 200, it’s usually assumed there’s probably a financial incentive to it,” Newton said. “We’re just trying to put some kind of limitation on it.”

He noted voters can still return their absentee ballot through the mail without needing an intermediary. 

Beyond hopefully shortening lines on Election Day, the law should also eliminate campaign pushes outside the polls. No campaign literature can be handed out or posters stuck in the ground within 500 feet of the entrance to where people are voting, to include early voting. Candidates can still greet voters outside the polls, but they’re barred from wearing campaign stickers or buttons.