A bipartisan group of four state legislators met at the Gressette Senate Building on a rainy Tuesday morning to call attention to the state’s aging voting system.
WLTX has reported extensively on issues with the machines and various calls to replace them.
The four legislators add to a growing list of elected officials, experts, and the State Election Commission, all of whom are pushing for a new system.
In the last few weeks, Richland County reported problems with personal ballot cards, touchscreen calibration and ballot counting.
However, the State Election Commission has said the issues were not widespread and were not necessarily the fault of the machines’ age.
Democratic State Representatives Beth Bernstein and Todd Rutherford, along with Republican Kirkman Finlay, met in Senator Thomas McElveen's office to talk voting machines.
Bernstein, Rutherford and Kirkman all represent separate districts in Richland County.
McElveen represents Sumter County as a Democrat.
“It's shocking to me that we don't have any kind of paper trail to verify what votes are being made,” Bernstein said in the meeting while talking to the press.
Among the legislators sat a map highlighting South Carolina as one of the few states completely dependent on a voting system that does not provide a paper backup of voter’s votes.
The bipartisan group of four say changing the state's 14-year-old voting infrastructure is a top priority for the new term.
“Our intention is-- we will be pre-filing House and Senate bills on this issue and try to work together to get this thing done,” McElveen said while addressing the media.
The bipartisan four say they want to make sure South Carolina's future elections are decided fairly, quickly and with a high level of confidence for voters.
“People can stand winning and losing, they can’t stand feeling like they’ve been cheated. That’s what we’re here to eliminate, is that feeling,” Kirkman added.
The Republic representative also pointed to Georgia and Florida saying its unlikely either side will ever be able to completely convince the other of this year’s election results.
All four expressed a desire to stop that from ever happening in South Carolina.
They also said they have a plan to pay for it.
“We have some $177 million in surplus revenue right now in a bank account that could easily address this problem. We also know we have a big lottery winner up in the upstate, and those state income tax revenues alone should provide a huge boost to our general fund,” McElveen said.
Last week, U.S. Representative from South Carolina’s 6th District, Jim Clyburn, suggested the same thing. Clyburn told WLTX over the phone that the roughly $60 million in tax dollars expected to come in, because of the lottery winner, should go to funding the replacement system.
Meanwhile, Representative Finlay says the price tag should also be lower than State Election Commission estimate as he pushes for a return to paper ballots.
“You walk in with machines and there are long lines. People leave. With paper ballots? You can have 30 people voting at the same time as long as they have a private place to sit down and cast their ballot. What does it take? A piece of paper and a pencil,” Finlay told WLTX after the meeting.
His Democratic House colleague agreed.
“It seems that that is the safest, best procedure to use and it's also the most economical. So why not use the best procedure that's also the cheapest?” Bernstein said.
The South Carolina State Election Commission told WLTX in recent weeks any replacement machine would require some sort of paper trail. But, that paper trail could be as simple as a receipt that prints for voters showing what they selected on an electronic screen.
The bipartisan four said they want a step further, not only a paper trail but paper ballots.
“We don’t want a machine being audited by a machine,” McElveen said Tuesday.
The Commission has said repeatedly the current machines function properly but are nearing the end of their life expectancy and need to be replaced before 2020.
In several interviews, Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said the Commission asked for an additional $60 million in their budget request to fund finding and paying for a suitable replacement.
Over the years, the Commission has accumulated about $15 million from state and federal funds, meaning the total cost would be closer to $75 million.
However, the four legislators expressed concern over the process and the public’s involvement.
“This is one of the interesting parts to me, I’m not aware that an RFQ or an RFP has been put out yet, so for us to begin even discussing, on a purchasing level, the system seems odd,” Finlay said during the meeting.
Finlay called back to the issue later in the meeting.
“It’s odd that you hear that a system has already been selected in a sense that’s going to cost $60 million dollars, that’s what’s concerning to me,” Finlay continued.
“From the same vendor that provides our current machines,” McElveen added.
“How did I miss the RFP, RFQ, the public debate and discussion? We couldn’t hand a $60 million contract anywhere else in government,” Finlay finished.
In those same interviews with WLTX referenced earlier in this story, the State Election Commission has said repeatedly that a replacement machine has not been selected.
When asked why the issue has not been addressed before, as the State Election Commission has asked for replacement funds in budget proposals for years, Rep. Rutherford said this year the money is there, and election scrutiny on safety and security is at an all-time high.
On Tuesday evening, Governor Henry McMaster’s press office provided WLTX with a statement:
Updating the state's voting machines is extremely important, which is why Governor McMaster began investing in replacing them in his Executive Budget last year. But it's also something that needs to be done deliberately and in compliance with both state and federal election laws. This is going to be an important debate in the General Assembly next year and the governor will continue to show that it's a priority of his.