COLUMBIA, S.C. — A new report from state auditors highlights shortcomings in election offices in South Carolina.
Earle Powell, the director of South Carolina's Legislative Audit Council, says his office's investigation into South Carolina's election process produced some surprising findings.
"Especially being an election year, I think this report will garner a lot of attention," he said.
According to Eric Douglass, the audit manager, their team was approached by the General Assembly in December 2021 to review the state's overall process for handling elections.
"We've interviewed dozens of officials at the South Carolina State Election Commission, [referred to as] the SEC, many county officials, federal officials," Douglass said.
According to the report, which totals close to 200 pages, they found over 1,500 dead individuals had active voter registration before March 1, 2023. Also, three ballots were cast between 2022 and 2023 from deceased individuals. The report also found 10 South Carolina Department of Corrections inmates cast ballots between 2010 and 2021. Also, over 200 SCDC inmates were listed with active voter registration as of March 2023.
"We're not talking about massive numbers of dead people voting or anything like that but we did find, a couple of instances, I think, three individuals who apparently somehow cast votes after being deceased, which was perhaps a result of them putting in absentee votes that were counted before they had passed away." he said. "It doesn't appear to be a material issue but it's something that nevertheless you don't want anyone that's ineligible voting."
Douglas says his team also had the opportunity to witness some of the state's elections, including local races, where they witnessed other inconsistencies with election day procedures.
"Generally it appeared the elections were running as they should but we did find some issues nonetheless, that was mentioned in the report, such as leaving ballot bins in public view when they shouldn't be." he adds, "It appeared that certain precincts were kept their early ballots [that were] cast at the voting location as opposed to back to the county election offices were there supposed to be stored."
Although the findings may seem surprising, Douglass said they did not find any evidence of voter fraud or double votes cast during the audit. He still believes elections in South Carolina are safe and secure and encourages residents to vote and read the report for themselves.
"In terms of ballots cast, it did appear that people were voting once, as they should," Douglass said. "Certainly, there's always a risk. In terms of finding any kinds of that actually exploited, we didn't see anything of that nature. The SEC might know more about that at the end of the day than we do. But we don't have reason to believe that that impacted any of the elections."
He tells us the office has given its findings and recommendations to the election commission and is anticipating they'll work with state lawmakers to make changes.
"Some recommendations have or are in the process of being implemented and whether or not the rest are, we'll wait and see," Douglass said.
The South Carolina Election Commission sent a statement that said, in part, "With the support of the general assembly, the SEC has created a new audit division, a new training division, and taken steps to create ... consolidated, statewide standardized procedures for voter registration and elections."
"We think these findings will help the SEC and our state's policymakers to continue the work of upholding election integrity in South Carolina," the commission added.
A summary of the report can be found here, and a full audit report can be found here.