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

I'm Gavin Jackson.

We're less than two weeks away from Election Day on November 5th.

And here in South Carolina, early voting has gotten underway at record levels.

We talked to voters as well as the state Election Commission director, Howard Knapp.

But first, let's hear from the voters of South Carolina.

[laughter] How's everybody?

Well, I feel real good about doing my part to help maintain this trek toward a more perfect union.

I think that, any observer of what's been going on in the country recently, know that our country is at a crossroads, and it's not the first time the country has been there.

I get a little bit amused when I hear people talk about it's never been like this before.

It has been like this before.

In fact, there's nothing that I've ever seen in history that closely aligned itself with the 1876 presidential election than this one.

This is moving exactly the way that one moved.

And at that time, the system failed and we ended up with Jim Crow.

I'm the ninth African-American to serve in Congress from South Carolina and all of that is because of that Jim Crow era that came in after that election.

And people who said that we'll get over it, I want to remind them there're 95 years between number eight and number nine.

Yes, we'll get over it.

Do you want to take a century of our children and grandchildren living as my grandparents lived?

I don't think so.

<Gavin Jackson> More than 2000 folks cast ballots on the first day of early voting in Darlington County, where Republican Jackie Huggins said the border was her top issue.

The border.

I really do.

I think it's the border.

I think it affects everyone.

I really do.

And all, but, we should see.

<Jackson> Mike Burch, the Fourth Circuit solicitor Republican candidate, expects to flip the position thanks to a growing Republican Pee Dee region.

Yes.

So within the past decade, we've slowly seen it turn Republican.

And within the past 4 to 6 years, it's aggressively turned, Republican.

For example, in Chesterfield County, we had never, elected a Republican sheriff until 2022.

And I believe he got 57 percent of down ballot votes.

Of course, that's in the governor's race year, sort of off year for the president.

But, we're starting to see a lot of local offices.

I think Darlington County has most every office has turned to, Republican, treasurer or probate Judge, coroner just switched back in the, early spring, late winter 2024.

So in all of Chester County, local officials, clerk of court started it with, being elected Republican.

Now the sheriff, of course, auditor, treasurer.

A lot of your county council people have switched to the Republican Party here.

And, I'd say the Western Pee Dee closest to the Midlands section.

What gets me motivated at the moment is health care, especially being of age and knowing that I will be able to get the health care that I need, not just Medicare, but being able to use all of my insurances and also making sure that the economy is thriving.

Not saying it's thriving and it's not, but making sure that we're there to assist and help the businesses.

<Jackson> The line was long in Kershaw County, home to only one early voting location in the county seat of Camden, which had more than 3000 voters in the first two days.

Because this election is so important, we have three grown children and we have one granddaughter that's four, and we want her to be able to make choices for her body and choices for everything and all my children.

We want them to live in a country that's free and for them.

So it's very important for us, for them to have that, the life that we worked so hard for them to have and we are both veterans so we found in the Gulf War and he's fought in two wars and we feel like our country owe us that because we did what we supposed to for our country.

I wish that my mother was here.

I wish that my grandmother was here to see days.

It's the same as when Obama... because you don't, we don't ever think that'll happen for us.

<Jackson> The crammed parking lot and long curbside voting line tells the story of the Lexington County Voter Registration office, the busiest of the six locations across the Midlands county, where a total of 13,000 ballots were cast on Monday and Tuesday.

When asked about a potential lack of enthusiasm from Black male voters, Rene Hulin had this to say.

Let me tell you something, and I'm gonna put it as simple as I can.

Most people that have a grandma would tell you that grandma ran that house and she ran it with respect and dignity.

And I believe Kamala going to do the same.

I have no doubt in my mind that she's going to go, she's going to put a lot into it, but I think we're going to see some huge change for our community.

She don't care whether you're Black, White, Puerto Rican or whatever.

She don't care.

Her thing is, let's do it right and that's what I want.

I just want the right thing done.

I don't want you up there talking about, "Oh, I'm rich as hell," you know.

Well, I'm like this other guy.

I ain't rich as hell.

But at the same token, what you, you keep talking about you rich as hell, but what you doing for the country?

Nothing but lining and you and your family up financially.

There was a time that I considered myself a conservative Democrat because I believed more in a democratic form of government than a Republican.

But my views have shifted a bit on that much, and I now consider myself a steadfast Republican.

Basically, people voting in this election are either going to be voting for Trump or against him.

Nobody is voting for Kamala, meaning that nobody would vote for her on her own attributes because she has none.

Ask somebody to make a case for voting for her without mentioning Trump.

They can't do it.

People want to call this, over the economy and budgets and those kinds of things, and it's not just that.

It's about who we want to be in the end.

So our democracy was challenged.

This is, my uncles fought for democracy.

My, one uncle was a P.O.W.

in Korea.

I'm not going to let that just go to waste because somebody wants to be a dictator.

I voted Republican in the past, and Republicans should have followed the Democratic lead.

He's way too old.

Last, last election, everybody was claiming that Biden was way too old.

Trump is older than Biden was.

The Republicans had chosen someone younger.

Someone willing to come out and fight then, yeah.

I mean, I'm an, I am the independent.

I'm the fiscally conservative, socially liberal.

Come on.

I am that independent vote.

I don't believe that illegal aliens should vote.

And I think that's one thing the Democrats are trying to do.

They're probably going to try to change the, the results of this election by allowing illegals to vote even though they're not legally entitled to do that.

That's why they're called illegal aliens.

But I came prepared for the, for the voting process.

I came wearing my MAGA hat, and the lady told me I suspected that she would, somebody would say, you cannot wear that hat.

So I had my other hat underneath.

You can tell now for sure who I'm for sure.

And I believe, I don't know.

I'm rambling on, but I think, I think Trump is the person to be the next president.

The former president needs to be the next president of the United States, or we're not going to have a nation.

People can make mistakes based off of wanting to have someone of their own skin tone in the office, you know, so badly.

They can make mistakes off of that.

We all want a Black president.

We all want a Black princess.

We all want, we all want that.

But I just wanted to consider that before I did that, that I was voting for someone who had the right character and I was going to protect people.

<Jackson> As part of a southern state, get out the vote bus tour.

South Carolinian and D.N.C.

Chair Jaime Harrison voted in Columbia on Wednesday.

You know, it's great to see people come out and vote and and I'll take off my party chair hat because of course, I want people to go and vote and vote Democratic.

But I fundamentally believe as an American that everybody should be able, if you are eligible to vote, you should be able to cast your ballot to vote.

And I'm not going to try to put any roadblocks or obstacles in front of you in doing so.

It really kills me to see the Republican Party put up the roadblocks that they put up in order to make it more difficult for people to vote in this country.

The reason why we are the oldest, active democracy in the world is because of the franchise, because everybody gets that opportunity to vote.

But the Republicans are always harkening back.

Trying to find new ways to make it difficult for people to vote or purging people from the voter rolls just because two years ago, they decided that they didn't want to vote because there was nobody worthy of voting for.

You should still have that right to vote.

And so, I'm encouraged to see more South Carolinians get out there.

Of course, I want them to vote for our Democrats.

Because I believe in the best people to fight for them.

But it's just great to see South Carolinians going to the polls.

<Jackson> Joining me now to talk about early voting and our elections is Howard Knapp.

He's the director of the state Election commission.

Howie, welcome back.

<Howard Knapp> Thanks for having me.

<Jackson> So we have a lot to talk about, but I want to lead off with, record turnout this week with early voting kicking off.

We have massive turnout.

We're taping this segment Thursday morning, so we only have numbers for the first three days, but so far, more than 383,000 South Carolinians have cast early ballots.

Each day that number goes up, it seems like.

So, what are they?

What are these numbers showing you?

What can you deduce from these numbers?

So, people are turning out in droves to vote.

I'm not surprised by the fact that we're having higher participation.

Although the participation we're seeing this year is higher than any other year prior.

But, it kind of proves that we've been saying for years what's on the ballot drives turnout.

<Jackson> Gotcha.

I mean, so that's what you're thinking is driving this.

Basically, it's a presidential year.

You look at some of these primaries, it's unfortunate for folks who run in primaries, but, when you look at, compare that to the general election, it really is the presidency.

You think?

<Yes> And so, Howie, when we look in 2020 going backwards, 2.5 million South Carolinians voted, or about 72 percent of participation rate.

But in 2008, we saw the highest participation rate at 76 percent, with 1.9 million folks voting.

So are we going to be somewhere in the middle, do you think or do you think we surpassed both of those metrics?

<Knapp> Not having a crystal ball, I think the, what I've been predicting is about 2.8 million voters, which would be approximately 75 percent.

<Okay> That's based on just historic trends and what we've been seeing the last few presidential elections.

But I think 75 percent-ish is a good guess.

<Jackson> And when we look at these early voting numbers, I've been across the state, even here in Lexington County in the Midlands, and the parking lots are filled.

It's it's kind of pandemonium.

It's kind of controlled chaos.

I will say everyone's behaving pretty well, but, what are you hearing from your your poll managers, from your state, your county election officials?

What do they need?

What are they seeing?

Are there any concerns happening right now?

<Knapp> What I've been hearing is what you've just said.

Record turnout.

There's a few locations throughout the state where they're having to actually create a parking lot, a different location, and shuttle voters to an early voting center.

Almost like the Biltmore or Epcot or something, which is good because we want voters to show up and vote.

I you know, what I do appreciate is, by and large, voters are being patient.

We're being civil.

Everyone's getting along, which is great.

Poll managers and the county election officials, you know, we've been training everybody for months and months for this exact scenario.

Unprecedented turnout.

Passionate voters.

Just be ready for the record numbers, which we're seeing now.

<Jackson> And you haven't heard of any major incidents with folks confronting officials or anything like that?

<Knapp> No, no, we have not.

<Jackson> Gotcha.

So then when we look at these early voting numbers, it seems like, you know, every day they're going up that we're talking about, obviously they'll peak at some point plateau.

It almost makes you wonder, should people keep waiting?

Should they vote on Election Day?

Does it really matters?

It could be a long line, regardless of how you think this is going to play out.

<Knapp> That's a great question.

I've gotten that from several friends.

You know, we vote at this early voting center or we live near here, and they're basically asking me for the best wait time.

<Yeah.

What could I go?> There's no easy pass or express pass for the voting center.

You know, usually historically, the first day of early voting or even in person absentee when we had it and the last day was where you saw the two peaks.

What we're seeing now is a progression, a thousand more votes every day, starting with about 126,000 votes on the first day.

My advice to people is to go when they can, probably the best time to vote was when most people can't vote, which is the middle of the morning, middle of the afternoon.

But, Election Day is supposed to be less turnout because of all the early voting numbers.

But, I just tell people, do what you can.

I think after work would probably be a good time right now to go vote.

<Jackson> And so we have hundreds of thousands of folks voting.

When we come to polls being closed November 5th at 7 p.m. will we get that data dropping immediately?

I mean, I feel like last time before when we had heavier absentee voting, all of those ballots were able to be maybe processed earlier.

Is that could be the same case for these early votes?

<Knapp> So we instruct counties, to start uploading their early voting numbers immediately because those votes are, that was one of the beauties of early voting is the ballots are cast and tallied immediately.

The results are not published.

And nobody knows the results, but they're on the result sticks.

So on election night, we train county officials, upload those results at 7 p.m. for early voting.

And if you have absentee done as do that as well.

It's going to be a longer process than usual just by virtue of the massive amounts of data and how, you know, again, 2.8 million ballots to go through.

That's a lot of data to upload and put on our website.

So, I'm hoping to see some results pour in around 8, 8:30.

I know the news would probably call results much quicker than we will.

<Jackson> Some races will be up for that conclusion.

<Knapp> That's true, that's true.

But, I'm predicting and we kind of have a little betting poll in our office that results will be done probably early morning.

<Jackson> Gotcha.

And so again, when you're talking about results come in later.

And of course South Carolina not being a swing state.

Not much pressure here, but of course we still want a strong, you know, secure election.

When people see those results trickling in, not only here but across the country, some people seem to think that that means there's something wrong or there's issues.

I mean, it just doesn't just happen like that, especially when you hear from other states and other folks who want to see hand counting, for example.

What do you tell people when they're saying why we have to wait a day or so to get final numbers in here?

<Knapp> Well, hopefully they won't have to wait a day or two, but it takes time to get it right, and we're much more interested in getting it right the first time and accurate the first time than we are, trying to be expedient about it.

<Jackson> So I want to continue to talk about election integrity and we spoke with Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was on the show two weeks ago, and he said his office and yours asked the federal government for data to cross reference with voter rolls and to purge them of any illegal voters, if there are any.

And Wilson said that, quote, "I cannot commit to you today that our elections are completely, 100 percent secure in the sense that there aren't ways for people to get on the voter rolls who should not be on the voter rolls."

Quote.

So what do you say to that?

Is this a problem when it comes to illegal voters in South Carolina?

<Knapp> So General Wilson is right and I've been very upfront about this ever since I was appointed.

Our voter rolls are never 100 percent accurate, and not for any malfeasance or wrongdoing, but just because people will register today, that weren't registered last night, people will unfortunately pass away today and will remain on the voter rolls until the Department of Public Health tells us they passed away.

The voter rolls are constantly changing.

Not for this election.

The books were closed 30 days ago, but General Wilson is right.

I, my job, I have a mandate in state law to keep our voter rolls as accurate as possible.

The immigration system as courts have held as a purely federal function and to ensure that, non-citizens are not on our voter rolls, I have asked the Department of Homeland Security to essentially take our voter rolls and just run it through your systems.

Tell me, are there any known non-citizens in your systems on our voter rolls?

And if there are, well, you know, remove them.

And, as I'm sure General Wilson said, they refused.

And we'll see what happens after that.

But, you know, we rely on state and federal partners to keep our voter list accurate.

We were hoping Homeland Security would be one of those partners, but they have refused.

<Jackson> And it sounds like the state of Texas just sued the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday for this information.

But, there is a database to check people's immigration status, too, but would that require y'all having to do it, I guess individually, or if there is a need to, or if you had some sort of, you know, tip that maybe this person is not an actual citizen?

<Knapp> Yeah.

So we are currently using a homeland security system that is supposed to be used to verify a person's visa status if they apply for welfare of some kind.

It's not really intended to be a voter list maintenance tool and like you said, it's a one by one comparison.

So we have 3.4 million voters in the state.

We have a list of, people from the Department of Motor Vehicles that have, that are, you know, international visitors that get South Carolina driver's licenses and we check them.

And so far, we haven't found any on our rolls.

But, it would just be a lot easier if we could just give Homeland Security our voter rolls every quarter, every year or whatever and say, let us know what you what you've got.

But I do want to make the point.

Even if Homeland Security said yes and did what we asked them to do, we're not really addressing the concern that some people have that non-citizens were crossing the Rio Grande, that, you know, who are just coming here illegally.

This data is not going to capture that.

I'm asking Homeland Security, to tell us who is come through a port of entry on a visa legally, things like that.

I don't suspect there are many, if any, but again, it's my job to ensure there aren't and I need their help.

<Jackson> Just elaborate on that before we move on, how we just, I mean, how could one person even do this?

I mean, I even spoke with some voters who are fearful that the Democrats are trying to, you know, get a bunch of illegal immigrants to register to vote.

But how could a non-citizen even register to vote and then even cast a ballot?

There are so many safeguards in place that it's it's doubtful that they would.

You would have to have, even if you registered by mail, which does not require an I.D.

to do, you would have to present a photo ID at the polls in order to vote.

We have never seen, we have had non-citizens on our voter rolls, but I have never seen an instance of a non-citizen actually voting, in South Carolina.

But this is really a preventative measure.

<Jackson> I want to focus on other issue that came up this week.

The state Republican Party said on Monday that there was a potential illegal ballot harvesting operation in Marion County, including claims that in one precinct alone, the absentee ballot number increased by 844 ballots from the presidential primary to the statewide primary in June of this year, and that 16 voters are registered under an address that is currently vacant.

Unclear what laws those things are breaking there, if any, if this is even substantiated.

But that information has been passed along to SLED and the A.G.'s office.

Do you have any comment about this attempted ballot harvesting?

<Knapp> No.

Ballot harvesting is illegal in the state, and I would just encourage anybody, as the Republican Party did, to contact the State law Enforcement Division if they suspect, ballot harvesting or any illegal activity.

Ballot harvesting is just, and that's another question people have.

What is ballot harvesting?

It's the act of collecting multiple absentee ballots from different people, a single person collecting them and returning them.

In this state, It's illegal to do that for more than five people.

Five was the the numbers set by Act 150 of 2022 and you know, that that was envisioned so that somebody could help others in their household, vote absentee because it has to be witnessed as well.

But, we will work with SLED and the A.G.'s office with any investigation.

<Jackson> Then Howie, another big issue that came up this week was a lawsuit filed by the A.C.L.U.

of South Carolina that claims that just in last 13 months, the S.C.D.M.V.

has unlawfully denied voter registration opportunities to more than 17,000 South Carolinians who are 17 years old at the time, but will have reached the legal voting age of 18 by election day.

Y'all are named in that lawsuits.

I'm assuming you're not gonna say much about it, but, the D.M.V.

has said that this was an I.T.

issue that prevented the transmission of registration information to the S.E.C.

Is there anything more you can elaborate on this with?

<Knapp> Sounds like D.M.V.

is correct.

We have a hearing on Friday morning, so, hopefully by that point we'll know how to address it.

And we will abide by any court order.

<Jackson> And when we were talking about all this stuff going on, I know we're talking, loosely about those non-citizens potential voting, even though you're saying that there's really no sign of that.

Can you just talk broadly in terms of how secure our elections are in South Carolina?

There's so much hubbub.

There's so many conspiracy theories going on.

People, for some reason, have become more and more distrustful of the process.

What is your word to them?

What do you tell folks when they bring up these, these theories to you, When you say people are just casting their ballots like normal?

Sure.

I understand I understand why they're upset.

I understand where they're questioning is coming from.

I will say what I was told and while I was in elementary school and first getting on the computer, don't believe everything you see on the internet.

Your county election office and the state election commission should be your trusted source of election information.

Unlike a lot of government entities, agencies, my agency and county election offices, everybody that works in these offices or works for me is a client of our agency.

We have a vested interest in the integrity of our elections.

So we do everything we can to ensure our elections are secure.

I will say the physical voting system, the equipment is not connected to the internet.

There's no way to hack it, regardless of what people said on, on the internet.

And in terms of our voting list, as we've talked about, the state is doing everything it can to ensure our voter list is as accurate as possible because, you know, this is a very important, constitutionally protected right to vote.

<Jackson> And Howie, the agency just purchased new ballot scanners this year, too.

how are they doing so far?

What was the need for this upgrade?

<Knapp> So the upgrade was kind of a necessity of needing more equipment.

At the time, the vendor was not making more of our existing equipment.

So in order to get more equipment, we had to actually upgrade all the equipment.

So we did.

We upgraded all the ballot scanners, it's the most, I was gonna say bigger, better, faster.

It's actually a smaller scanner, but it is better.

It is faster.

It is more secure.

But, we also, to the point when we were talking about a turnout, we anticipated unprecedented turnouts.

So we purchased a lot more ballot marking devices, which is the screen you see, and you actually vote on because ballots are long, especially in this election.

You've got a million officers on the ballot.

And behind all those offices are all these tax referendums, which are lengthy.

That means, you know, in a normal election, a voter will spend 2 to 3 minutes voting.

This election, I think we're seeing about anywhere from 8 to 10 minutes per voting session.

So knowing that the choke point was going to be at the ballot marking device, the state purchased more ballot marking devices so more people could be voting at one time.

<Jackson> And more reason to look at your sample ballot at SCVotes.gov Giving you a little plug there.

With less than a minute, Howie, want to ask you about, just your workers.

Your people, obviously, you know, it's county by county, too, but, you know, there was concerns about a poll worker shortage.

You have new election officials in each county in some cases, just fresh on the job there, too.

So, are you confident in how the elections will be run this election?

What more needs to be done to help retain and attract folks to this profession?

<Knapp> I guess the first thing I would say is, people, are they skeptical about the election?

Which a lot are.

They should put their money where their mouth is and volunteer to be a poll manager.

On the flip side of that, I would say people will get upset with poll managers or get upset with the process.

They need to realize the people working at the polls are their neighbors.

It's working the polls that people are assigned to, you have to live in the area.

So it's neighbors helping neighbors.

There are some counties which fortunately do have enough poll managers, but some of the bigger counties are still in need.

I'm going to give a plug to my oldest daughter, Isabel.

She is a poll manager's assistant at my polling place this year, because she knew there was a dire need in Richland County and she stepped up, which is great.

So it's, you know, it's part of being an American and I think everybody needs to embrace that.

And, just volunteer once for one election.

<Jackson> All right.

Well, good luck to you and all those poll workers out there as we approach Election Day, that State Election Commission Director Howard Knapp, thank you so much.

And that's it for us this week.

I'm Gavin Jackson, for all of us here at South Corolina E.T.V.

be well, South Carolina.

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