It’s apparently more tricky than anybody thought to figure out how many South Carolina voters need photo IDs. This week, the State Election Commission released an updated estimate of how many registered voters don’t have photo IDs. The previous estimate was 178,000. On Thursday, they said it was probably 217,000 — or about 40,000 more.
Then Friday, the commission said that they may have further underestimated the numbers, by excluding more than 74,000 people who haven’t voted since 2006. The state attorney general’s office wants some more information about those newly discovered.
“We’re going to talk with the S.C. Election Commission and figure out what analysis they used to come up with their numbers,” said Deputy Attorney General Bryan Stirling. He said he expects that to happen early next week. Then they’ll either submit new information to the DOJ or ask that the Election Commission go back and recalculate, he said.
So, in one week we’ve gone from 217,000 to potentially more than 290,000 people. Of course, that’s minus the 21 people who signed up for rides to local DMV offices Thursday. If the DMV could register 21 people a day, every day of the year, it would take 38 years to get everybody covered.
Might not work out for the folks who want to vote Nov. 8 in the local municipal elections in the Lowcountry, or in the GOP primary, which for all we know could be next week.
The one-two punch of few people taking advantage of the free rides and the realization that even more people could be affected by the new law should be food for thought for all concerned.
Of course, this is all to fix a problem that has not been documented to exist in this state, namely, one person posing as another person to vote.
Full Article: BALOG COLUMN: Voter ID controversy gets worse | The Post and Courier, Charleston SC – News, Sports, Entertainment.