South Carolina

South Carolina: Voters beware: 25 states restrict AI in elections. South Carolina is in the other half. | Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette

South Carolina enters the 2026 campaign season without any state laws preventing political candidates from using artificial intelligence to make unfounded attacks against their opponents. Twenty-five states now require disclosures when using AI in campaign materials or banned its use altogether, with a number of them passing their laws ahead of the 2024 election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In the last presidential election cycle, GOP hopeful Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign shared AI-generated images of President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one-time chief medical adviser to the president, who is loathed by much of Trump’s base. Read Article

South Carolina: Aiken County election’s office fails first effort to certify | Anna Wilder/Hilton Head Island Packet

Despite initially certifying the wrong election results and failing its audit, all votes in Aiken County have been accurately counted and certified, despite a software glitch, state and county election officials said. South Carolina Election Commission spokesperson John Michael Catalano said some of the vote totals in Aiken were incorrectly counted in the wrong voting-method category, but the total votes for each candidate were correct. “It was the makeup of the vote, and it was basically absentee votes were showing up in election day totals,” Catalano said. Catalano said no other county has failed an audit since 2020 when South Carolina changed the voting system process to include paper ballots. Read Article

South Carolina prepares for November with new ballot scanners, court incentive for poll workers | Abraham Kenmore/SC Daily Gazette

All of South Carolina’s ballot-counting machines are being replaced with new, faster versions ahead of the November elections. The State Election Commission on Tuesday announced the purchase of 3,240 updated DS300 ballot scanners. The new scanners are slightly smaller than the ones used since 2020 but otherwise look the same and are made by the same company. However, they’ll start up, scan and upload results significantly faster, according to the agency. “This upgrade reflects our commitment to providing a secure, accurate, and transparent voting process that is accessible to all eligible voters,” Howie Knapp, executive director of the Election Commission, said in a news release. The total cost of the new scanners is about $29 million, paid for through a program of the state treasurer’s office that provides low-cost financing to upgrade state agencies’ equipment. Read Article

South Carolina: Here’s why election equipment maintenance and licensing matters | Rachel Ripp/WLTX

Maintaining and renewing licenses for election equipment is vital. If it’s not maintained, and something goes wrong, it can impact the process of casting your ballot. That’s why this week, Lexington County Council met to approve about $184,000 for voting machine maintenance fees and licensing renewals. It’s a yearly to do list item, but it’s also critical to election integrity. “Maintenance on the equipment, so if something breaks, the screen breaks and you need a screen replaced, preventative maintenance on scanners, making sure the rollers are clean and everything’s functioning properly,” said Chris Whitmire, SC Election Commission spokesperson. Lexington County Election Administrator Lenice Shoemaker tells News 19 her office has been lucky the past 12 years she’s worked there. “I didn’t have any trouble with any of my machines that I get. I had a battery that was going low once, which these don’t use that anymore, and the rover came, swapped out the batteries and it was fine. I just used a different machine until he could check it,” Shoemaker said. But it’s better to be safe than sorry. Lenice explains her staff is starting the process of checking all the equipment, from cleaning it to making sure all the buttons work to scanning test ballots. After all, this equipment just sits in a storage room, unused for long periods of time if there’s no special or municipal elections. And when it is used, it’s on the move.
Full Article: Lexington County council renews election maintenance | wltx.com

South Carolina: Early voting coming after lawmakers reach deal on election board oversight | Zak Koeske/The State

True early voting in South Carolina appears likely to become a reality this year. Both the House and Senate on Wednesday approved elections bills that add two weeks of early in-person voting, establish a set number of early voting sites in each county and authorize election officials to begin examining and tabulating absentee votes prior to Election Day. The popular legislation had appeared dead just a few weeks ago due to the Senate’s insistence on including a provision giving the body say-so over the governor’s appointments to the state elections board, which the House and Gov. Henry McMaster would not entertain. Senators late Wednesday dropped that demand, settling instead for confirmation of the state election director and a process for removing the elections board or its executive director if they fail to enforce and defend or publicly discredit state elections laws. “In a way, what we have here is better than advice and consent on the board,” said Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, the amended election bill’s sponsor. Campsen explained that while senators may not be able to deny board nominees up front, they now have a process for removing them once they’re seated, if need be.

Full Article: No-excuse early SC voting could be in place by 2022 primaries | The State

South Carolina House effort to expand early, no-excuse voting gets unanimous support | Emily Bohatch/The State

House Republicans rejected a push from within their own party Wednesday to close the state’s primary elections, and instead unanimously advanced a bipartisan proposal that would add two weeks of excuse-free early voting and allow local election offices to count ballots early. Lawmakers passed the bill, sponsored by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, in the wake of a record breaking number of absentee ballots cast in 2020. South Carolina offered no-excuse absentee voting because of the ongoing pandemic. As a result, more than a million residents took advantage. Under current law, South Carolina voters can only cast absentee ballots if they meet certain criteria, such as a disability or older than 65 years old. The House bill would set a permanent, no-excuse necessary in-person voting period Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., in the two weeks ahead of general elections, primaries, primary runoffs, special and municipal elections. Voters who look to vote absentee by mail, however, would still be required to have an excuse. The bill also contains provisions that would allow election workers to begin tallying absentee ballots one day earlier than is currently allowed. Specifically, election workers would be allowed to look at outer envelopes of returned absentee ballots the Sunday before Election Day, and they would be allowed to begin counting ballots the Monday morning before.

Full Article: SC lawmakers expand early voting, quash move to close primaries | The State

South Carolina: Voting machine issues reported in Richland County on morning of election runoff | Noah Feit/The State

As Columbians went the polls Tuesday in the runoff elections for mayor and a city council seat, reports surfaced of voting machines not working at multiple precincts. Initially, issues were reported in 12 of 70-plus voting precincts in Richland County. But the problem could be more widespread and might have affected all voting locations, Alexandria Stephens, Richland County’s Director of Voter Registration and Elections, told The State. Stephens said information on the specific polling places that reported problems was not available. “We’ve had some issues with electronic poll books,” Stephens said. “There is no issue with voting. People can still vote.” The electronic poll books are used to check in voters, Stephens said. The problem meant the bar code used to select a a specific style of ballot was not working, South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire told The State. This did not prevent the ability to vote, it just created some extra work for poll managers, according to Whitmire. Because the ballots were not being activated by the bar code, poll managers had to take voters to the machines and call up the ballots, Whitmire said.

Full Article: Columbia, SC runoff election for mayor has problem at polls | The State

South Carolina: Lexington County GOP calls for 2020 election audit, confusing GOP Lexington State Senator | Adam Mintzer/WIS

The Lexington County Republican Party wants the 2020 election results to be looked at again despite their party’s big wins in the county and state. In a resolution the county party passed this week, the Lexington County GOP says people in Lexington and across the state witnessed quote “questionable activities” as the votes in the 2020 election were being counted. “[V]oter rolls have not been sufficiently cleaned as required by law throughout the state, therefore, allowing for illegal votes via residency, citizens located on the death registry and other circumstances,” the county party writes in the resolution without providing further evidence. State Senator Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, says she is confused by what her own constituents are trying to achieve through this audit and says going through with it could potentially waste time and millions of dollars. “To call for that since we won so big in South Carolina it’s really a waste of taxpayer money. And it would be taxpayer money. I mean who else is going to pay for that? I mean, we won three senate seats, we won 2 house seats, we turned back over a congressional seat, and Trump won 55 percent in the state and 65 in Lexington county. What are we looking for?” Shealy said.

Full Article: Lexington County GOP calls for 2020 election audit, confusing GOP Lexington State Senator

South Carolina elections director steps down three months earlier than planned. Here’s why | Joseph Bustos/The State

South Carolina’s state elections director, who announced her resignation in May after she pushed for COVID-19 health precautions before the 2020 election, has stepped down three months ahead of her original leave date. Marci Andino’s last day on the job was Friday, Oct. 1, said state elections’ spokesman Chris Whitmire, adding she’s accepted a new job as the director of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, part of the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. Andino notified the five-member State Elections Commission of her planned move on Sept. 15, though she had initially planned to stay on through the end of December. Voter Services Director Howard Knabb will serve as interim director until commissioners find a permanent replacement, Whitmire said. … Last year, and what ultimately led to her departure, Andino pushed for expanded access to absentee early voting and mail-in options as a way to limit the spread of COVID-19. She also asked lawmakers to allow voters to request absentee ballots online and to remove the witness signature requirement on absentee ballots.

Full Article: SC elections director steps down early to take new job | The State

South Carolina: Voting problems in primary prompt fears about November election | Kirk Brown and Conor Hughes/Greenville News

Calissa Brooks and Contrina Young are sisters who live together in Greenville, but they said they were given different ballots after arriving at a branch library on Anderson Road to vote in Tuesday’s primary. “We didn’t have the same options, and we live at the same address,” Brooks said Wednesday. “You show up to vote and then you can’t get the correct vote — that’s very frustrating.” Young said that when she asked questions about the different ballots, a poll worker “brushed her off.” Other voters shared similar stories with The Greenville News, including Susann Hellams Griffin. She said that although she and her son live in state House District 6, they were given ballots at Pendleton Elementary School that included candidates from state House District 8. “I am horrified by it, frankly,” said Griffin, who didn’t realize that she and her son received the wrong ballots until after they left the polling place. She said she called the Anderson County elections office and a staff member confirmed the mistake.