Both houses are actively working on reforming the process of judicial selection. The House Chair outlined 16 recommendations, some quite broad. Neither public election of judges nor gubernatorial appointment is reflected in the recommendations. We applaud Rep. Tommy Pope’s chairmanship of this committee, both for hearing out everyone who wished to speak and for his diligence in organizing the complex body of information.

The Senate has scheduled a Judiciary Subcommittee on Tuesday, Feb 6 with multiple bills considered., invited testimony only.

Today the House Judiciary Constitutional Laws Subcommittee forwarded with a favorable recommendation: H.4589, Municipal Election Protests and H.4590, Early Voting Hours. They heard testimony but did not act on H. 4022, Instant Runoff Voting [Municipal Elections), H.4259, Hand Count Audit Act, H.4260, Voter Access and Transparency Act, H.4261, Clean Voter Roll Act, and H.4591, Ranked Choice Voting Ban..

The Subcommittee will meet again to further consider these bills, possibly several times. We cannot afford to ignore the bills with potentially disastrous impacts.

House Judiciary Constitutional Laws Subcommittee has just posted an array of voting bills to be heard Thursday, January 25, at 9 AM , Room 516 , Blatt Building. On the agenda: Muncipal Election Protests, Early Voting Hours, Instant Runoff Voting, Hand County Audit, Voter Access and Transparency, Clean Voter Roll Act, and Ranked Choice Voting Ban. The League supports some and not others. More details to come.

South Carolina Daily Gazette

A review of South Carolina’s election process found no fraud that could have swayed results, but auditors do recommend cleaning up the voter rolls more often. The review of records from 2020 through 2023 found zero instances of a non-citizen voting in South Carolina.

Lynne Teague, with the League of Women Voters, said none of the glitches found by auditors should cause anyone to doubt the integrity of South Carolina’s elections. .“People who charge that our elections have no integrity are basically undermining our democracy,” said the vice president of the League’s South Carolina chapter. “There’s nothing in this review that should cause us to question whether we have a system that’s reasonable and fair and has integrity.”