Status Report: 2024 Election Security in South Carolina
Happy Election Day, South Carolina!
This is one of the most important days in our nation, where we the people, have the opportunity to make our voices heard and cast our ballots for who we want to represent us and lead our country, state, and community. Voting is a right and privilege we should never take for granted, and we hope that all of you reading this have taken the time to vote!
Palmetto Promise is proud to stand for election laws that safeguard South Carolinians’ right to vote and ensure that we have secure, fair elections.
After the 2020 election, our team took on an extensive project reviewing election laws from across the nation and compiling a list of our top 20 recommendations for election law reform here in South Carolina. This report became the basis for legislation in the 2022 General Assembly, and in the end, 17 of our 20 recommendations were included in the final bill and signed into law. Because of this, our state elections are more secure and safe, and South Carolina’s election laws have been ranked #1 in the nation by the Foundation for Government Accountability.
The benefits of this new election law have already been seen in the 2024 election.
One change Palmetto Promise advocated for was cutting down on the use of mail-in ballots, in favor of allowing early, in-person voting for people who might not be able to vote on Election Day. This early in-person voting is exactly like voting on the day itself, but it gives you a bit more flexibility and cuts down on reasons for voting by mail (like being out of town on Election Day, for example). Thus, the reasons for voting by mail were cut down from 15 to only 8 very necessary ones, and South Carolinians have embraced in-person early voting. For the 2024 General Election, over 1.5 million South Carolinians chose to vote early – that is 43% of the state’s registered voters, and the highest number ever to vote before Election Day! This is a huge win for South Carolina. More voters can cast their ballots in a safe, secure, in-person way, and we expect that the flexibility in voting schedule will result in higher voter turnout than ever before.
For those voters who are still eligible to vote by mail (the elderly, hospitalized, military, etc.), the 2022 legislation made the process even more secure and safe from fraud. Measures were included to crack down on ballot harvesting, so anyone returning an absentee ballot must present their photo ID and is limited in how many absentee ballots they can personally return. Absentee ballot requests now include voters’ social security numbers (so no one can mass request absentee ballots for people), and ballot witnesses are now verified. The legislation also adds ballot features that will allow the Election Commission to determine if an absentee ballot is authentic without compromising the confidentiality of the ballot. These changes and more ensure that any mail-in votes that are cast are extremely secure and only done by those who truly need to vote that way.
Note: One of the most important election reforms was to make election law violations felonies. Fraudulent voting, requesting or returning more absentee ballots than the law allows, or providing anything of value in exchange for absentee ballots are now among our state’s most serious crimes with the most significant penalties.
South Carolina’s voter rolls are more secure thanks to the 2022 legislation (Act 150). The state and county election commissions are directed to work together on cleaning the state’s voter rolls and eliminating any duplicate registrations. A very clear procedure for doing so is outlined in the law. The legislation also clearly states that only U.S. citizens may be registered to vote.
Codified into state law, state election machines are expressly prohibited from being connected to the internet or any external network (or even being capable of being connected to an external network), so the electronic machines function solely as vote-selectors and tabulators. This provision alleviates concerns about any internet transmission of election results.
You can read more about changes made in the 2022 legislation here.
The 2022 election reform legislation marked a tremendous win for election integrity in the Palmetto State, and South Carolina voters should feel more confident than ever in the security of our state election results when the polls close tonight.
