Emergency alert- please contact these legislators immediately

These bills, if passed, will thwart paper ballots and hand counting

We have grave concerns about SC Senate Bills S36 and S37. These bills do not set the gold standard for elections. We must remember that the foundation of our Republic is the confidence of our voters and candidates in the electoral process. If passed, these bills will only serve to erode that confidence.

Bill S36

Bill S36 increases the precinct size from 1,500 to 3,000 and allows the county board of elections and registrations total flexibility in moving/changing polling locations or precincts. While this may be convenient for the election commission as it may reduce vote locations, it is far less convenient for voters as it reduces accessibility and increases confusion, travel, and wait times.

The entire purpose of this bill is to make it extremely difficult to hand-count hand-marked ballots. We MUST NOT lose the flexibility and ability to do so. This is especially important given that the new presidential administration is eager to go to one day of voting with hand-counted hand-marked paper ballots. This bill hamstrings our ability to do so.

Instead, our state should be an innovator—one of the first to step up and prove this model viable. We have done pilot tests on this and are able to count 100 ballots with 11 races in 1 hour with a 4-person team. If we keep these precincts to a manageable size, 1,000 ballots could be counted with three teams of 4 before midnight.

Now is not the time to be making significant changes in the wrong direction, given that:

1. The new administration’s mandate is for one day of voting with hand-counted, hand-marked paper ballots.

2. As you may be aware, the SC election director is under active investigation by SLED for misconduct.

Currently, precincts are granted waivers to maintain their size, and many have already exceeded the recommended limit. Instead of moving in this direction, we should plan for precincts to be small and manageable and establish accountability measures to create new ones if they exceed the size limit.

Just as a company responds to growing demand by opening more stores, we should adapt to the needs of our constituents, not the administrative convenience of the agency serving them.

Bill S37

Early and continuous vote uploading and reporting are counterproductive to the goal of safe and secure elections. Too many potential attack vectors and bad actors could obtain that information, and the risk-reward ratio doesn’t make sense.

The only reason for that is to cheat and potentially call-in last-minute voters. This undermines the trust of the voters and must be addressed. There must be no vote totaling until the polls close. County employees would know the local results and would be reporting these to the Election Commission via the ENR Election Night Reporting computer (which is connected to the internet). There is no reason why the election director or board of elections should have that information early. That is a severe risk and one that could be easily compromised.

Securing our vote must always trump convenience. Early uploading of results is unnecessary as it doesn’t save much time. Computers at the county are programmed to speed up the process. It is not the number of flash drives that determines time but the amount of data. The time it takes to upload data will be the same, spread across different flash drives.

Our election data is heavily loaded toward early voting, roughly 50% of the total vote. This is why early voting data is problematic from a fraud perspective. Early data uploading (and reporting) gives a select few the election results early. It allows “bad actors” more data and time to act. Given the issues of the last several years regarding elections, we must show voters we are working to mitigate risk, not increase it.

While uploading results early and continuously is convenient for election workers, it only adds risk to the process. Given the lack of trust in election systems, our legislators should look for ways to mitigate risk and enhance transparency of the election process. We urge the committee to vote NO to these bills, as it is our collective responsibility to ensure the integrity of our elections.

ACTION NEEDED:

Contact the following subcommittee members today! Tell them to vote no on S36 and No to sections 9 and 10 of S37.

We need to ensure that elections are by the people for the people. Let’s reduce risk, not increase it by commingling precincts and uploading results early.

Here are the emails and contact numbers for the Senate judiciary subcommittee:

georgecampsen@scsenate.gov, michaeljohnson@scsenate.gov, joshkimbrell@scsenate.gov, tameikadevine@scsenate.gov, allenblackmon@scsenate.gov, edsutton@scsenate.gov, jeffzell@scsenate.gov

Here are some related videos:

https://www.scsafeelections.org/updates/emergency-alert-contact-the-judiciary-submittee/