♪ opening music ♪ ♪ Welcome to This Week In South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

With a little over a week to go before election day, we recap the gubernatorial debate between incumbent Republican Governor Henry McMaster and former First District Congressman Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, and look at where both candidates stand on abortion, education and the economy.

But first with early voting now open, Chris Whitmire with the South Carolina Election Commission updates us on what voters can expect leading up to Election Day.

Chris, thanks for joining us.

<You're welcome> Chris, talk about early voting.

It got underway on Monday.

We're taping this on Thursday morning.

Tell us what you're seeing right now in this early data for early voting in the state.

Sure.

More than 42,000 people voted early on Monday, the first day of early voting.

That was about twice as many as the highest day from the June primaries, which is the only thing that we have to compare it to.

Early voting news been in place since the bill passed on May 13th and so the June primaries are really our early experience with true early voting.

But that was very encouraging.

We assumed there would be more people voting early in the general election, for various reasons, but double the highest number from the June primaries, I think was very impressive.

And then, another more than 45,000 On Tuesday.

So, the number went up.

The numbers for Wednesday are still being put together.

We expect those numbers to look similar to Tuesday, not sure if it'll go up again, or be about the same, but, so we're hovering in the mid 40 1000s a day.

<Gavin> So is that kind of what you guys were expecting?

Do you did you have any expectations?

anticipations?

What do you deduce from these numbers?

<Chris> Yeah, so we expected the numbers would go up for a number of reasons.

One is that it was such a short timeframe between May 13th, the date, the bill was signed into law.

In the beginning of early voting, it was about two weeks.

So not a lot of time to really get the word out there to everybody about early voting.

Also not a lot of time for counties to identify an open maximum number of locations or as many locations as they want, would want it to open.

We had about 85 locations statewide in June.

We now have about 115 locations statewide.

So, more locations.

There's also more hours, so the hours are 8:30 to 6 for a general when it's only 8:30 to 5 for a primary, so they get that additional hour.

Saturday, you know, as we go through early voting, there'll be an extra day.

Saturday is included for general elections, which was not the case in the primaries.

And so just as people learn about it as we advertise it, as people talk to their family and friends about their experience with early voting, we think the convenience of it for voters being able to choose to vote at any time over a 17 day period, except for a few days there, when it's not open, gives voters more options, and we expect voters to start taking advantage of that.

Another reason is that in the 2020 general election, we essentially had early voting.

It was basically no excuse absentee.

A little different process.

But in that case, when you add it in person absentee and absentee by mail more than 50 percent, about 53 percent of the voters in the 2020 General voted before election day.

So we have that experience to say look, that's probably where we're going.

And then we also look at other states and other jurisdictions that have similar early voting processes and they see approximately half the voters voting before election day.

So we expected those numbers to go up.

So a lot to look for when you get that data at the end of this early voting period for this year that you guys will be able to, I guess hash out see what the trends are, of course and and who's voting where.

But Chris, you guys had some problems this week, too, on Monday.

The scvotes.gov website crashed.

Was that malicious?

Was that just overwhelmed?

You give us some background about what happened there on Monday with the scvotes.gov?

<Chris> Sure.

We've worked with our law enforcement, cybersecurity partners and professionals and determined that it was not malicious.

We recently redesigned our website.

And it's great.

We also moved the server and doing all of that the proper settings and optimizations for the amount of traffic that we received on Monday morning were not in place, causing the website to crash on Monday and ended up getting it back up by Monday afternoon.

But nothing malicious, but certainly a learning experience for us and everyone involved so that we believe now that the proper settings and optimizations are in place that, that won't be an issue going forward.

<Gavin> Yeah, it's a lot of interesting and informative tidbits on that website, resources as well as sample ballots, voting locations, results, all that fun stuff.

scvotes.gov But Chris, I want to ask you about the bipartisan, that massive voter integrity bill that we saw the legislature passed this year, even talking about it was signed by the governor.

Tell us more about what was changed in that law.

Again, massive bipartisan support for that law.

Yes, there's a lot in it.

Of course, the big, the big ticket item is early voting, and, which has been something the state election commission has supported for a long time to give voters more options before Election Day.

Aside from that, there's some changes to the absentee voting process.

You know, one of the big changes is that the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot is now 11 days before the election instead of four days.

So five o'clock on Friday, this Friday, this week, is the deadline to return your application, the deadline to apply.

And, so that's, that's seven days earlier.

That's a change.

You know, probably need just need to say it that, also implementing early voting also eliminates in person absentee.

So there's, there's no more such a thing as in person absentee where you go to the office, get your absentee ballot and vote it there.

It's all by mail.

It implemented some new rules for, returning your absentee ballot.

When you return your absentee ballot, you have to show a photo ID just like you would if you were voting in person.

And there are new rules around who can return an absentee ballot for you.

It's either a family member, or what's called an authorized representative who's really acting on behalf of someone with disabilities who's unable to go to the polls.

So those are the only two types of people that can return your ballot, whereas before, you'd really have anybody return your ballot for you as long as you fill out this form and both people sign the form.

Now that's limited to just a family member, or just an authorized representative who's doing it for a person with disabilities.

And they would also have show photo ID.

Some changes on the witness requirements.

Two changes there really.

One is that the witness has to be a person who's at least 18 years of age or older.

Before there was no no rule on that.

So a minor could sign.

There's just no no rule there.

And then the witness must also print their name, in addition to signing so the witness always had to sign provide their address.

But I think that was put in place because if it's my signature, you're not going to be able to read it.

Having the witness print, their name was added.

There's also a limit mentioned family members and authorized representatives returning ballots.

Family members and authorized representatives can also request a voters absentee application for them and return it.

But there's been a limit put in place of five in addition to your own, that you can request applications and return ballot.

So, if I was returning family members ballots, I could only do five in addition to my own and couldn't do any more.

So that's another change.

Quite a few things in there.

I think those are the big items, but, I always could be leaving something out there.

<Gavin> Yeah, I was gonna say I think they also increased penalties and made it a felony offense for photo fraud, too, which is pretty rare, too.

Right.

I mean, do we even have Do you know, any, any big cases or any cases of voter fraud that we've seen in the state in the past couple years?

<Chris> They have been few and far between.

I believe there are some cases.

We went through house legislative oversight committee hearing earlier this year, or going back to last year, but you know, I know, as part of that hearing other state agencies, I'm not sure if it was law enforcement or courts, themselves, but they put together a list of incidents from I don't know, the past 10 or 20 years.

There were some incidents on there, but to answer your question, they were rare.

Few and far between of incidents of prosecuted election crimes.

<Gavin> And when we talk about incidents to Chris, kind of jumping ahead a little bit, are there typical issues that we see on election day?

Are there any threats we've seen to poll workers or any safety concerns that you're worried debate in this day and age?

<Chris> Yeah, so, in the primaries, we had some incidents where I will describe them as election integrity activists showed up at polling places, demanding access to equipment.

Arguing with the clerk's and managers, they're at the polling place demanding to take pictures of the equipment of making claims that seals suppose it required seals were missing on the equipment, and in some cases, called police to polling places to file a police report about these alleged alleged improprieties.

So, that in and of itself was essentially interfering with the conduct of an election and disruptive at the polls and can be intimidating to the voters who are there.

These are while voting is going on.

So what we've done is we've worked with SLED, our executive director Howard Knapp and SLED Chief Mark Keel actually issued a joint letter to all the sheriffs and police chiefs around the state making them aware of a number of things.

One is, the general environment since the 2020, general election.

And that, and sort of the threats nationally against election officials.

Now we haven't received any death threats like they have in other states, but the environment is certainly there.

And then, and then two, making them aware of these incidents from the June primary, and that these violate state law, and that we have to have order in polling places.

Also, that law enforcement officials are not allowed to go into the polling place, unless they're there to vote, or unless they're called by the managers for assistance.

And that's designed to prevent voter intimidation, as history in South Carolina in this country of law enforcement being used to intimidate voters.

So that's why those laws are in place.

So just making them aware of that, that there's no it's not a thing where an activist can call the police into the polling place.

Only poll managers can do that.

And then, and then making them where, hey, but we want you to be at least close by and know where all these polling places are because if the county boards of voter registration elections need your assistance, we certainly want you to be ready to respond and come to our aid, if necessary.

But with all that said, we don't, we expect a peaceful good Election Day on November 8th and that's the way it's been so far in early voting.

<Gavin> Yeah.

And even with the new voting machines that we've had in place, since I guess 2020 was the first general election with those new paper ballots, touchscreen, all that stuff.

It's been very smooth sailing to and we have about a minute left.

Chris, I wanted to ask you and tell you that both gubernatorial candidates this week during the debate said that they would, they do trust the certified election results from November 8th, and that they would accept them.

Is there any reason that people shouldn't accept the election results from the state election commission from their county board of elections in this day and age?

<Chris> No, I'm glad they said that.

The state election commission, your county boards voter registration elections.

And all the poll managers throughout the state work very hard to ensure election integrity in South Carolina.

We put out a document, we have it on our website on election integrity in South Carolina, it really goes through everything that we do to ensure election integrity.

I will just mentioned, one of the big things is we do hand count audits after the election.

And so some of the claims is that hey, the votes can be changed over the internet or you know, somehow somebody can hack the scanners or the voting equipment change votes.

That's just not possible.

Number one, the voting system is not connected to the internet in any way.

It is impossible.

And number two, we do a hand count audit after the election.

So when you look at your ballot, and you put it in that ballot box, we then go back and do a sampling of ballot boxes, open that box, hand count them to make sure that matches what what came out of that scanner.

So that's just one of the things we do but one of the most important things.

<Gavin> Gotcha.

A lot of good information there and more that you can find at scvotes.gov And that's Chris Whitmire.

He's the director of public information at the South Carolina State Election Commission.

Chris, thanks so much.

<Chris> You're very welcome.

This past week S.C.E.T.V., South Carolina Public Radio and the Post and Courier hosted the only gubernatorial debate between incumbent Republican Henry McMaster and Democrat Joe Cunningham.

The debate took place here in our Columbia Studios.

Here's a recap from some of the key moments from the debate, starting with their response to what they think abortion law should look like in South Carolina.

<Joe Cunningham> Quite simply, I think it was fine the way before under Roe v. Wade.

And quite pointedly, I trust women.

I trust women to make their own health care decisions.

And Governor McMaster doesn't.

And that's the clear contrast between the two people you know I'm on stage here tonight, because Governor McMaster wants to ban all abortions and have no exceptions for rape or for incest.

Or even for the life of the mother, folks.

His position is the most egregious form of government overreach you could imagine.

I mean, just think about it.

If the government, if politicians are able to come into your doctor's offices, what could they not do?

That's why the consequences of this election are so dire because if a abortion ban comes to the governor's desk, without exceptions, he'll sign it.

And I'll veto it.

And that is the key difference between the options that you have here in South Carolina tonight.

McMaster: <Governors response.> Well the problem with that is Mr. Cunningham knows well knows no such bill is going to ever reach my desk.

We've never had a bill like that in South Carolina.

What Mr. Cunningham is for was pre Roe.

And as we know, that allowed abortions up to up to 24 weeks, that is six months.

That is six months, that Roe allowed abortions for any reason, or no reason at all.

That is the radical position.

We know when that heart starts beating it six to eight weeks, we know that pain is felt from sometimes 15 to 19 but none of the bills that are pending right now, do what he said, I'm confident that what is going to happen is that our legislators will continue to work as they have been doing, and they will come up with a bill if they come up with one at all.

If not, we have the pain capable in the heartbeat bill, both of which have all the exceptions.

But I believe they will come up with a bill that is acceptable to most of the people of the state.

That is the goal of what they're doing.

<Gavin>: Economists and business leaders are forecasting a recession in 2023.

How would you help South Carolinians weather this storm as they are already feeling the pain from inflation and higher prices?

Mcmaster's: I would continue to do what we've been doing.

And that is by building but let me just say most of what Joe Cunningham just said is dead wrong.

And he knows better.

And he's trying to scare people.

And I think it's a bad service to the people to continue with that that line of irresponsible charges and accusations.

Because what he says is not correct.

Now what we will do is what we have been doing we've had since even since Mr. Biden took office now, he has been an obstacle and we've had to fight him.

tooth and nail.

We've had I think five or six lawsuits, trying to keep them from disrupting business in South Carolina.

But last this this year, right now we have a record of capital investment for our people.

It is over $5 billion dollars.

We have never done that before.

What else have we done?

We've cut taxes.

Do you know that the income tax rates in South Carolina have never been cut before?

We cut them this time from 7% is gonna go down to 6%.

We've got more people working right now than we've ever had before.

We have more money in our trust funds they have filled up than we've ever had before.

We've also for the last four years cut taxes on for the unemployment insurance.

I have the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

They're small businesses, I also have the endorsement of about 70%, 75% or so of all of our sheriffs and solicitors for law enforcement.

My goal is to keep this state safe so the people can work.

The most important thing we do is education.

And we'll get to that in a minute.

Thank you, <Gavin>:Thank you, Governor.

Congressman?

Joe: Yeah, I just want to clarify that Governor McMaster had an opportunity to say that he would veto a bill without exceptions, folks, when Governor McMaster said he wanted to do away with exceptions, believe him when he said the first time but when it comes to our economy, last year, when gas prices were skyrocketing, I felt them at the pumps as well.

I felt them at the grocery store.

But we called on Governor McMaster to temporarily suspend the gas tax here in South Carolina just like other states were doing.

This wasn't a partisan solution.

Republican governor down in Georgia did the same thing temporarily suspended it, but Governor McMaster would not suspend the gas tax.

That would've provided immediate relief for folks at home, and also would not have jeopardized any types of building projects.

Because we had so much money come in through the bipartisan infrastructure deal, or COVID relief.

The fact is, folks, we want to eliminate the state income tax because South Carolina has the highest state income tax rate in the entire southeast.

And with all due respect to Governor McMaster, he's had over 40 years in politics to eliminate it.

You look around at states like Tennessee and Florida and Texas, they're seeing unprecedented economic growth, folks, we can be that economic lighthouse for businesses that will either want to grow or expand in South Carolina.

But we have to have new ideas.

And we have to have a new vision.

Governor McMaster, we have an ongoing teacher shortage here in South Carolina.

So what would you do to recruit and retain teachers, especially in higher poverty and more rural areas of the state?

Mcmaster's: That's a good question.

And it's hard to get them into those rural areas.

That's something we've been working on for a long time.

And sometimes we can get to teachers to go there.

But they don't stay because there's nothing to do.

It's a rural area and they rather be, somewhere around a city.

But I think we got to have the best teachers in the whole country in South Carolina, I don't want to pay them.

Just the Meet the southeastern average, I'd like to be way above that.

In the time that I've been in office, we have raised teacher pay $10,000.

That's not enough.

We need to do more.

But we're doing everything we can for teachers.

In addition, and back to your York county, that's one of the fastest growing places they need more schools, they have more schools coming up and most anything but we have to meet that demand.

I have a task force is working right now.

It's a retention and recruitment and retention is headed headed by a number of people who are a Barbara Nielsen is one.

And their job is determined exactly what else we can do.

But we've raised the pay, we have law enforcement officers in the schools, I got law enforcement officers are trained, certified, armed law enforcement officer, in every in now over 900 going on 1000 schools in South Carolina out of about 1200 or so.

We had less than 400, somewhere around 300.

When I started, we also have a mental health counselor.

And we're working to find a way with Prizmo and McLeod Health and Health and Human Services to have an emergency room for mental health.

We're just trying to start it in Florence.

So Marion County, we got a lot we can do to help the teachers.

Joe: Yeah, look, this is one of the most pressing issues in our entire state.

And a special session was called which is normally reserved for emergencies will be hurricane relief, or otherwise, or the most pressing issues.

But it wasn't called for paying our teachers more, or fixing our roads, or doing something by our high crime rate, it's called to rip away freedoms of women.

And folks, this teacher shortage crisis is going on is being felt by everyone and some of us.

Some of us feel it more than others.

I know that when I drop off four and a half year old son off at school and a door swings open, and I see a brand new teacher, my heart kind of sinks a bit because I think about the bonds that my son has formed.

With that teacher, that's left and I think about him having to start over from scratch.

Folks, our teachers deserve a lot more than what they're getting.

And I want a 10% raise for all teachers across the board.

And I want to get the starting salary up to $50,000 a year.

By the mid by the end of my administration.

And teachers are feeling betrayed by Governor McMaster and by politicians in Columbia.

They're leaving in droves because of it.

The same reason that most people leave their jobs because they're disrespected.

They're underpaid.

And they're overworked.

There are concerns that just like with the abortion ruling that the Supreme Court issued earlier this year, that the court could also reverse the gay marriage precedent that had passed.

South Carolina law currently bans gay marriage as well as the state constitution.

If the court reverses the gay marriage ruling that it had it has in the past and throws it back to the States.

Would you support legislation that would eliminate the ban on gay marriage and also allow voters to vote on to rescind the the the amendment in the Constitution?

McMaster: Well, gay marriage is is it is in our Constitution, it is not allowed.

And under our state law, it is not allowed.

I would follow state law whatever the state law is, but I'm maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think in marriage ought to be between a man and a woman.

Just like I think that boys ought to play in boys sports and girls ought to play in girls sports.

But I mean, there's you have to have some common sense in this arena, which seems to be changing all the time.

But I think that the our traditions, I think are strong, and I think they're there for a reason.

Joe: Yeah.

Wow.

For those of you who are just tuning in, it's 2022.

And Governor McMaster wants to ban same sex marriage.

You just heard that tonight.

Folks, we have politicians that have been in government so long and become so calcified and their beliefs in Governor McMaster has been a politician literally longer than I've been alive.

He's been taking our state backwards the entire time.

Governor McMaster has been leading South Carolina into the 1950s.

Since the 1980s.

Folks, this campaign that we're running is a campaign ran on freedom.

And I don't care who you are or who you love.

I don't think it's government's role to be getting in the middle of that and I don't think it's a politicians role to be ripping away freedoms from people and women who just want to make their very own health care decisions.

You know, as it relates to veterans and taking care of them, we could expand Medicaid and provide health care to 10s of 1000s of veterans and the governor could do that just with a flip of his pen.

I won't hesitate for a second to expand Medicaid on day one, to make sure that healthcare is expanded and here's the thing.

For those of you who have private insurance as well, your rates will go down because the pool will be expanded.

<Gavin>: To stay up to date with the latest news throughout the week.

Check out the South Carolina lead to podcast that I host on Tuesdays and Saturdays that you can find on South Carolina public radio.org or wherever you find podcasts for South Carolina ETV I'm Gavin Jackson, Be well South Carolina.