South Carolina voters break 24-year-old record during Midterm Election

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)– A record-breaking Midterm Election in South Carolina. Nearly 1.7 million South Carolinians cast their vote which broke the record for midterm voter turnout, but whenever you have that many people showing up to the polls, things won’t run completely smooth.

“In any statewide election, we expect something to happen on election day,” Chris Whitmire said, a spokesperson for S.C. Election Commission.

With more than 2,200 polling places and 13,000 voting machines voting was smooth in nearly all 46 counties, but a few had a couple of hiccups.

“So yesterday there were some issues in the morning. Some equipment preparation errors, human errors, in preparing the equipment in some counties that caused some voting machines not to be open in the morning. Had to use emergency paper ballots. Which is the standard procedure for that,” Whitmire said.

Charleston County reported some extra long lines, causing some late voting, but as long as voters were in line before the clock struck 7, their voices were going to be heard.  

“Those types of issues were the exception and not the rule. We expected that to happen somewhere,” Whitmire said.

Even with some extra wait times, voters didn’t seem to mind, breaking a 24-year-old record by setting the highest midterm voter turnout since 1994. For those who are worried their vote might not have counted because of the paper ballots, Whitmire says the election commission performs two audits after an election to ensure accuracy.

“Really, it’s not a huge impact for voters, that they’re not voting on voting machines. It’s something different. They’re experiencing something different. They’re experiencing something different but they voted on a paper ballot, It’s going to be counted on election night,” Whitmire said.

Overall, Whitmire said it was a very successful election day in terms of voter turnout across the state and says much of the credit should go to poll managers who work extra hard to make sure everything can run as smooth as possible.

“They are the protectors of democracy. If it wasn’t for those poll managers who worked very long hours yesterday we wouldn’t have elections,” Whitmire said.

The election commission said they saw the signs showing that this was going to be a big election. They said voter registration was double what it was back in 2014 midterm election and the absentee voting activity really gave them an idea of what to expect election day.