Bill 3444 prohibits drop boxes which is a good thing. However, there is no procedure for drop boxes in the current Code of Laws for SC. They are already illegal, which is why counties that contested the boxes in 2020 were successful and were limited to locations at the county board of election offices.
Section 7-5-50 of the bill states that “no county board of voter registration and elections may accept or expend any funds other than public funds to prepare for or to conduct elections.” No outside involvement by for profit or nonprofit corporations should be involved in our state elections. The county board of elections as well as the State Election Commission should not be allowed access to any outside funding.
Bill 3444 is problematic in that it centralizes more control at the state level. which leaves our state elections more vulnerable to partisan control. (NOTE: the Governor appoints ALL members of the SEC…with the caveat that one appointee needs to be a member of the majority party in the General Assembly and the other from the minority party…otherwise the Governor picks whoever he wants – and he also appoints the Chairman of the SEC. These officials who run our elections are NOT elected.) Decentralization is important here because it mitigates the dangers of centralized control, allowing counties to make decision that best reflect their constituencies. In other words, with this bill’s passage, counties would no longer be able to make the decision to dump the machines! In the same vein, this bill ABOLISHES the municipal election commissions, a further effort to centralize control upwards.
A fundamental conservative tenet is that decentralization is more optimal in that it tends to foster innovation. Centralization of the functions of government only allows for more concentrated control and power which gives the people less confidence in their election system. This is the main tenet of why the democrats are pushing H.R. 1. They want total control of elections under the guise of enhanced quality control. To that point, our own election commission should not be responsible for auditing themselves. Perhaps this role should be relegated to the Secretary of State.
There are some hidden aspects of this bill which are also problematic. Why should the Speaker of the House and Senate President be able to intervene in any federal or state legal case involving an election law…or the way an election is carried out?
Bill 4919 says that it limits reasons for absentee voting but it extends in person voting to 2 weeks (in person voting to be one day and was only expanded last year due to COVID). It also doesn’t substantially limit the categories of who can request mail-in absentee ballots. As of this writing, they include: members of the American Red Cross, armed forces, government workers, students (as well as their spouses and dependents) and people age 65 and older, among others. Does this seem like a restriction in absentee ballots? The only limit appears to be people who are on vacation and absent on election day. Absentee ballots are a huge source of potential malfeasance and should be limited only to people or active military out of the country or the severely ill or disabled.
This bill also requires witness signatures and the last digits of the voter’s SS# but most likely due to time constraints these ballots are checked very quickly or not at all.
Overall, the election reform bills (4919 and 3444) (are moving in the wrong direction. I hope that the senate can bring themselves to amend them substantially or stick with our current system and enforce the laws on the books. We need to move forward, not backward. If our governor and legislature was serious about election reform these bills would reinstate ONE day of voting, severely limit reasons for absentee balloting, get rid of the machines and go to paper ballots as well as have enhanced voter roll maintenance procedures, including the elimination of our reliance on ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center). .