Columbia, SC (WLTX) - South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has fired the entire Richland County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, weeks after it was revealed over 1,000 votes weren't counted last November.
McMaster announced Thursday afternoon he'd removed them via executive action in an effort to restore "public confidence" to the board. He said the decision came as a result of "continued misconduct and neglect of duty by board members through a series of elections and fiascos."
“South Carolinians’ confidence in the lawful and professional oversight of elections must never be jeopardized,” said Gov. Henry McMaster in a statement. “The repeated actions and behavior of these officials are wholly unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. To regain and maintain Richland County voters' confidence at the ballot box, the entire board must replaced with new leadership.”
The Governor seemed particularly upset by a meeting held Wednesday night by the board to discuss the uncounted votes. The meeting turned contentious, and at one point, State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, who'd gone to the meeting to ask questions of the board, told board member Shirley Mack that she didn't understand her duties and needed to be removed.
"Members of the Board exhibited misconduct on the February 13, 2019 meeting, and members have done so in previous Board meetings, to include mismanagement of Board Meetings, improper conduct, and bad behavior," McMaster wrote in his order.
The governor also mentioned previous problems with the agency, including that 1,100 votes weren't counted in 2010 and the 2012 election fiasco when not enough voting machines were sent to precincts, leading to wait times up to seven hours for some voters.
The Board members' replacements will be nominated by the county's legislative delegation and appointed by the governor.
Last Saturday, the election board's director, Rokey Suleman, resigned in the wake of the revelation that hundreds of votes were not counted in the November 2018 general election. The board's chairman said Suleman's decision to step down was directly tied to the problem.
A published report in the Charleston Post & Courier last month had found that 1,040 votes weren't tabulated in Richland County during the November 2018 races. That represents less than one percent of votes casts.
The South Carolina Elections Commission told News19 the issue came down to four machines across the County.
Two absentee ballot machines and two machines in other precincts had personal electronic ballot (PEB) cards that were not collected correctly or at all, according to Chris Whitmire with the SEC.
Whitmire told WLTX two absentee ballot machines had shut down before election day. Procedure says to immediately quarantine the machines and discontinue their use until it's time to tabulate results. However, the machines were never revisited for tabulation.
At two other precincts in Richland County, one machine was not 'closed,' meaning it did not make the final tabulation. Another machine's card was simply never collected and recorded, according to Whitmire.
"There are standard procedures in place that should have prevented this from happening. The very simple reconciliation procedures, very simple checks and balances, when done properly would prevent this type of error," Whitmire said.
Whitmire reiterated the SEC's claim that the counting issue did not affect the final outcome of any of Richland's races.
Voters WLTX spoke to on Thursday were not as confident.
"I don't believe them, I don't believe them and there could have been more votes than that and I don't trust the voting system," said Sylvia Green outside one of the affected precincts.
"Again I think those people that are a little bit more stoic, those that feel as though my vote doesn't matter, that's going to help corroborate that particularly opinion and they'll perhaps say, 'Why should I?' So, I really have a problem with that," added James Anderson.
Anderson voted in Richland County in November using an absentee ballot.
Certified results cannot be changed, so both Richland County and SEC board minutes will reflect the change in final number results, along with the SEC's website, according to Whitmire.