COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – The mayor of South Carolina said the 2020 state elections were “exemplary”, but he wants to do what he sees as an important change before the system is tested by a disputed or controversial election.
Spokesperson Jay Lucas made a rare appearance on Thursday before a subcommittee to explain the bill he is sponsoring, which would require counties to follow state standards in checking absentee votes and other electoral matters.
There were a series of bills presented in this session to amend electoral laws – from several proposals that require some proof of identity for voters who vote with absent ballots and people who sign as witnesses to the complete removal of elections from the independent State Election Commission for the post of the elected Secretary of State as in other states.
Lucas’s bill is the first to be heard at this session, and the mayor struggled to say that he considered the 2020 elections to be well conducted and that his proposal was to avoid future problems.
Some counties check voters’ signatures on absentee ballots and others do not. Some give absentee voters a chance to correct their ballots if they don’t follow the exact rules, like forgetting to sign it, Lucas said.
“The entities that are doing these excellent jobs, we just want them to follow the same rules,” said Lucas.
The bill unanimously approved by the subcommittee also increases the size of the current South Carolina Election Commission board of directors, with five members. Lucas suggested eight members, four appointed by the governor, two by the mayor and two by the president of the Senate. They would be divided between Republicans and Democrats.
The subcommittee changed the bill to make it nine members, with the governor being able to nominate four of his five members from his own political party.
The American Civil Liberties Union supports the law so that electoral rules are uniform, said Susan Dunn, head of the organization’s legal division in South Carolina, suggesting that they were frustrated by the different rules that counties use when convicted criminals try to restore their voting rights.
South Carolina lawmakers created the State Election Commission in 1969 for an independent agency to conduct the elections, and Dunn said he has a lot of support from elsewhere.
“At these national tables, the South Carolina system is widely respected,” said Dunn.
The subcommittee also approved three other changes in the elections. One would require all applicants to pay a registration fee, whether or not they have a primary. A second would cause the state party to consider all contestations of results in its own primaries down to the county level, and a third would no longer require county political parties to publish legal notices of their conventions in the local newspaper.
———
Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.