The South Carolina House of Representatives made some key amendments to Speaker Lucas's bill H.3444 and sent it back to the South Carolina Senate.
Here's the big points:
- Require all county election commissions fall under the State Election Commission. This is important because it requires all counties execute elections the same way. So voters in Lancaster County know their votes are being handled the same way was votes in Beaufort County.
- Bans "drop boxes" for ballots
- Continues to require the State Election Commission to conduct post-election audits and expand the different audit methods (including but not limited to: risk-limiting; hand-counts; third party vendor & ballot reconciliation) for all elections in the state. The conduct and result of ANY audit must be published on the Commission’s website upon completion.
- Requires that State Election Commission to report to the S.C. Attorney General or other appropriate law enforcement agency, any violation of state election laws
- Prohibits any county board of elections from accepting or expending private funds to conduct elections–like Facebook or the ACLU.
- Requires that a person may only vote in the last place that they registered to vote and that the act of registering or voting in a new location is evidence of intent to change domicile for purposes of voting.
Tell your Representative THANK YOU
This is a BIG STEP in continuing the fight to defend the security of our elections.
Speaker Jay Lucas, Chief Majority Whip Brandon Newton, and Election Law Subcommittee Chairman Jay Jordan were key in making it happen, and our Republican legislators stood up and helped secure enough YES votes.
So, please take a moment to say, "thank you," to your State House of Representative member for voting YES for election integrity.
And stay tuned for more election integrity legislation coming soon.