Get ready to vote

Not sure who will get your vote in the 2024 General Election? 

 

You can use this week’s Election Guide to learn more about the candidates for the contested local offices. In this edition, we feature interviews with the candidates for four local races: U.S. House District 1 (page 19), State Senate Dist. 44 (page 18), Solicitor Circuit 9 (pages 14-15), and Berkeley County School Board At-Large (pages 16-19).

 

Our reporter asked the candidates for each office the same questions with instructions to follow identical word limits. Sometimes candidates opted to respond with answers shorter than the limit, other times candidates used the full-word limit allotted. Candidate answers are printed as provided. Edits were only made to remove statements candidates directed at their opponent or the opponent’s record as the format did not allow for rebuttals.

 

Local races on the ballot that are not contested and not included in our guide are: State House of Representatives, District 99 (Mark Smith, Republican), Auditor (Wilson Baggett, Republican), Berkeley County Treasurer (Lori Fiddie Glover, Republican), Berkeley County Council, District 2 (Jarrod Brooks, Republican), Berkeley County Soil and Water District Commission (Lynn B Curtis II, nonpartisan.) And, some Clements Ferry Road residents reside in State Senate Dist. 37, where Larry Grooms is running unopposed.

 

On the presidential ballot, voters have a choice between seven candidates: the Democratic ticket of Harris/Walz, the Republican ticket of Trump/Vance, as well as candidates running under the Constitution, United Citizens, Green, Libertarian, and Workers parties.  

 

BALLOT QUESTION

There is also a statewide constitutional amendment question on the ballot, which asks:

 

“Must Section 4, Article II of the Constitution of this State, relating to voter qualifications, be amended so as to provide that only a citizen of the United States and of this State of the age of eighteen and upwards who is properly registered is entitled to vote as provided by law?”

 

A “yes” vote means you are in favor of the question. A “no” vote means you are opposed to the question. 

 

The proposed amendment makes a one-word-swap to the state constitution, changing the guaranteed right to vote from “every” to “only a” citizen in South Carolina who’s at least 18 and properly registered.

 

POLL PHOTOGRAPHY

If you want to post a photo on Election Day to one of your social media accounts or take a photo for any other reason, be sure you know the poll rules regarding selfies and other photography at the polls, which you can learn in the story on page 13.

 

DUPLICATE ABSENTEE BALLOTS WON’T BE COUNTED TWICE

Last week Berkeley County Elections and Voter Registration Director Rosie Brown confirmed that the county system inadvertently sent a duplicate absentee ballot to approximately 488 voters. She stressed that the absentee ballot counting system prevents two ballots from the same person from being counted twice.

 

“No voter can cast a second ballot,” Brown said.

 

She explained that a barcode is embedded in absentee ballots. The code contains the name and address of the voter. Once one ballot is returned and scanned, a subsequent ballot with the same name and address would automatically be flagged and rejected, preventing a person’s vote from being counted twice, she said.

 

Brown said that her office has instructed voters to only return one completed ballot. She said that the county will keep a separate ballot box for any duplicate ballots that are returned and that she will present those to the County Board of Elections and Voter Registration. 

 

According to a statement issued by Berkeley County Public Information Office, the county is working with the SC Election Commission to investigate what caused the duplicate ballots to be sent. Dorchester County also had a similar situation with duplicate absentee ballots being mailed to some voters.

 

TAKE YOUR ID

Whether you vote on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, or during the early voter period, please be sure to take a valid photo ID to the polls. Accepted forms of identification are a SC driver’s license, a SC DMV identification card, a SC voter registration card with a photo, a federal military ID, or a U.S. passport.