South Carolina Moves to New Voting System
South Carolina will implement a $52 million upgrade of its voting system this fall, deploying a paper-based voting system in time for a special legislative election on Oct. 1 and municipal elections scheduled four weeks later.
Until now, South Carolina was one of a handful of states that did not provide voters with a paper ballot from which to choose their preferences.
Election officials accelerated their timetable for rolling out the new system after conferring with election security experts.
Under the new regime, voters will be given a blank piece of paper upon entering their respective polling places and asked to insert it into a ballot marking machine as soon as they are ready.
They’ll then use a touch screen, just as they have the past 15 years, to choose their preferences. After the touch screen allow them to review their choices, they will then press “print,” which prints their ballot onto the piece of paper.
The voter will then feed the paper into the scanner, which will tabulate their vote.
The printed paper will then fall into a locked box under the scanner to be used later in vote auditing.
The state originally planned to put the new system in place on Jan. 1, 2020, but after the initial set up went smoothly, it was decided to go ahead and use it to ensure any kinks are worked out before it is used for South Carolina’s presidential primary on Feb. 29, 2020.
In The News
Health
Voting
Voting
ST. LOUIS – The city of St. Louis, Mo., will hold its mayoral primary Tuesday with a new electoral process approved by voters in November. Under the so-called “approval voting” regime, candidates of all political affiliations will appear on the ballot without partisan labels. The measure... Read More
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress begins debate this week on sweeping voting and ethics legislation, Democrats and Republicans can agree on one thing: If signed into law, it would usher in the biggest overhaul of U.S. elections law in at least a generation. House Resolution 1,... Read More
WASHINGTON - An independent political committee's use of aggregate contribution data related to PACs does not run afoul of the Federal Election Campaign Act, the Federal Elections Commission said. Full Employment Now-Political Action Committee is an independent expenditure-only political committee that engages members of Congress and Congressional candidates... Read More
DES MOINES, Iowa - Residents of Iowa will have to wait until next week to learn if dramatic changes are going to be made to how they participate in future elections. Earlier this week, both houses of the State Legislature voted along party lines with their... Read More
WASHINGTON - Two former chairs of the Federal Elections Commission -- one a Democrat, the other a Republican -- have thrown their support behind the election reform provisions of the For the People Act. In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate, Trevor... Read More
WASHINGTON -- A federal election official described the 2020 vote as one of the most difficult in American history during a congressional hearing Monday. The COVID-19 pandemic, reports of attempted foreign cyberattacks and allegations of fraud by President Donald Trump and his supporters played havoc with... Read More
