COLUMBIA, S.C. — There are changes in the works for Richland County voters ahead of the June primaries, now just two weeks away.
In a grim update on Tuesday afternoon, the Richland County Voter Registration and Elections office said it would need to combine about 70 of its polling locations for the June primaries.
Interim director Terry Graham said it's due to coronavirus.
“If we combine locations, we're much closer to getting every—having the poll workers we need for the June 9th election which is two weeks away. It's not something that I wanted to do, but you know, due to COVID-19 we—it has been a struggle to get people to come, the people that normally work for us,” Graham said.
The announcement came as Graham and other election officials met with the County’s State House delegation.
Last week, 11 Richland County lawmakers wrote a letter requesting a meeting with the County’s voting office over concerns with polling locations, absentee ballots, and the ongoing search for a permanent director.
Graham said the combining of 70 polling locations would affect about half of the County’s 149 precincts, mostly due to the County only having 72 poll clerks.
“We don't want to disenfranchise anyone, we don't people to have a long drive and we want to make sure they get to the polls and they have a close proximity to where their normal polling locations are. They will be notified via postcard, I'll get to the media to push that for me, and we also going to put out signs and let them know their polling location has been temporarily reassigned for this election only,” Graham said.
Graham said the change notifications will start being mailed to registered voters on Wednesday.
Lawmakers also asked his office to post signs outside unused polling locations as soon as possible, with detailed addresses and names of the new polling locations.
The State Election Commission and Richland County say to check your precinct before going to vote and to be prepared for changes due to the pandemic.
Graham said he would send the new list of polling locations for approval and notification on Tuesday evening.
So far, the County has about 590 poll workers between clerks and managers. However, they still need about 100 more before election day.
The lack of poll workers and unwillingness of some former polling locations to open their doors for June led to the new combined locations, according to Graham.
The election office also told lawmakers the personal protective gear from the state might not make it in time to be useful on election day.
“The SEC did order us some supplies and some of it we may not get in time, because some they just ordered last week. Some of those things we will not receive in time. But I did take some extra steps, we had to order some of our own personal ones that we can send to the polling locations. The masks, hand sanitizer, wipes, q-tips, we took our own measures and steps to make sure there will be enough for our poll workers and possibly for the people that come to the polls on election day,” Graham said.
State funds were made available for elections in the recently passed continuing resolution. Several of the Richland County lawmakers on the call expressed concern the state’s order would not make it in time and offered to try to facilitate the delivery between now and election day.
Richland County and the State Election Commission have said repeatedly poll workers would receive personal protective gear, voters would be urged to socially distance, and voters would use extended q-tips to use the state’s new touch screen voting machines.
So far, more than 500 people have voted absentee in-person in Richland County. Another 18,000 have requested absentee ballots by mail, according to Graham.
The Richland County Voter Registration and Elections Board told lawmakers they were hoping to have a permanent elections director in place by July 1. The open permanent position was a concern listed in the lawmakers’ letter last week.