Election being held to fill seat of slain SC state senator

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Voters in South Carolina’s Lowcountry are choosing a new senator to fill the seat of Clementa Pinckney who was slain in the Charleston church shootings earlier this year. Voters in Senate District 45 go to the polls on Tuesday to choose between Walterboro attorney Democrat Margie Bright Matthews, a Walterboro attorney, and Republican Al Fernandez, a small businessman and minister. The district includes parts of six counties reaching from Charleston to the state’s southern tip in Jasper County. Pinckney and eight other parishioners were shot and killed in June in the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.