Prepping to Put on a Primary
Columbia, S.C. (WOLO_ —In just weeks South Carolina voters will be filing in and casting ballots, but there’s more to making an election happen than just turning on some voting machines.
Prepping for a primary election is no small task in fact work for the First in the South Primary actually began more than 6 months ago.
“Really as soon as one statewide election is over we’re getting ready for the next one,” says Chris Whitmire with the SC State Election Commission.
Preparations that require extra work, when it comes to a presidential primary.
Whitmire explains,”It is a primary so we’re used to doing that but it’s also on two different dates.”
Deciding those dates is first on the list, then securing 2300 polling locations across the state. a task made more difficult by the Saturday dates.
He tells ABC Columbia, “Weddings things like that are planned well in advance and you know that church that’s normally used as a polling place might not be available.”
Next up is creating a voting database, one for each of the state’s 46 counties.
“All of the electronic ballots and the paper ballots are both produced from this database so you have to build this database once candidates come in,” he says.
Once that database is built, it has to be installed in each and every voting machine.
According to Whitemire, “You know a large county could have 1000 voting machines so that’s a lot of hands on work to get those voting machines ready for election day.”
Finally counties must select and train poll managers who continue work until the polls close.
