FLORENCE, S.C. — A Florence woman registered to vote before her county's registration deadline only to be told weeks later that she wasn’t allowed to vote.
"I really sat back and thought, ‘is this what people mean by voter suppression?’ I was really kind of in shock and frustrated," Cassandra Snelling said.
Snelling recently moved to Florence, South Carolina, from Chicago. On Friday, October 2nd, she headed to the DMV to change her license and register to vote. Snelling says the deadline to register to vote in Florence County was October 4th.
"I had been checking every week since then because I wanted to go ahead and vote early ... so every week, I would check, and it would show up as me not being a registered voter for the state yet," Snelling recalled.
She then called the Florence County Elections Office to figure out what was going on. Snelling said the county told her they received her application on Monday, October 5th, (past the voter registration deadline) and it was too late to vote in the General Election.
"It was very disheartening to feel like my vote didn’t matter or that it wasn’t wanted," Snelling said.
News19 checked in with SCDMV to find out how this happened. Executive Director Kevin Shwedo said all DMV locations send a list of people that registered to vote that day to their county elections office at the end of each night.
"We accepted their application on October 2nd, it got batched out at midnight and it would be naturally processed the first working day, which was the Monday following - the 5th. So, the system worked exactly how it was designed to work," Shwedo explained.
He said it’s on the County Elections Office to see that the list was sent on the 2nd and therefore before the voter registration deadline.
Snelling said she wants this to be resolved not only so she can vote, but for others that registered to vote on October 2nd.
Chris Whitmire, spokesperson for the State Election Commission, told News19 they’re clearing up the situation for Snelling so she can vote.
“We have talked to the voter and checked with DMV and confirmed that she indicated she wanted to register before the deadline. Her registration is being processed so she can vote," Whitmire said. He continued to say, "it doesn’t matter when the application gets to the county, what matters is when the voter indicated they wanted to register. If we can confirm that, the registration is processed and backdated to the appropriate date.”
Snelling was discouraged by what happened but thanks to her determination to use her voice, she’ll be able to cast her vote on November 3rd.
South Carolinians can check their voter registration on scvotes.gov. If someone registered before their county’s deadline but doesn't see their name in the system, the Election Commission suggests calling the county elections office.