Follow up to our trip to the senate

Action alert

Our trip to the Senate yesterday was frustrating in that the legislators seem to always have their mind set on their bills and favor the agencies over the people. We had 8 people attend, many traveling two to three hours to be there. We signed up first on the list yet the committee kept letting the woman from the League of Women’s Voter’s speak first every time. Furthermore, they never let us speak on S37 which is mostly a municipal elections bill that has sections 9 and 10 added which allow the counties to upload early and absentee data starting at 7 AM election day as well as send this information to the election commission.

The main issues they brought up were the lack of available polling locations that are also ADA compliant as well as the inability to hire poll workers. This could be fixed if we had one day of voting that was a state holiday. These locations would be available and we would only have to staff one day. The other issue I brought up was the fact that if areas are growing, we should be adding locations not letting these precincts become larger.

Thankfully, the vote for these bills S36 and S37 were delayed for amendments to be added.

Call Senator Chip Campsen (803) 212-6340 and tell him the following:

For S36 Keep precinct size to 1,500 and ADD specific accountability measures to ensure that plans are in place for new precincts to be added when precincts exceed the 1,500 limit by 10%. The proposed bill only includes reporting of the precincts that exceed with NO accountability measures in place for remedial actions.

For S37 Ask Senator Campsen to delete Sections 9 and 10 as they add unnecessary risk to our election data. There is NO reason for this information to be uploaded early and reported to the SEC.