Deputies recover voting machine from Atlantic Beach

ATLANTIC BEACH -- After refusing to turn over voting machines used in the November election, Atlantic Beach officials were forced Tuesday to hand them over after Horry County Sheriff’s deputies came to the town a court order.

Horry County typically delivers voting machines the day before the election and picks them up the day after the election, Horry County spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier said in an email. Atlantic Beach repeatedly refused -- in person, by phone and by email -- to return the machines that were last used in the Nov. 1 vote, according to court documents.

“Atlantic Beach would not release our equipment, this was the only way to get them back,” Bourcier said.

The county plans to review the machines, she said but referred questions about any actions or investigations to the state election commission.

The S.C. State Election Commission could not be reached Tuesday, but a letter that executive director Marci Andino sent to Horry County Voters Registration and Election Director Sandy Martin on Monday advised the county to take immediate action.

The town should have returned the equipment immediately and is not authorized to conduct any independent tests on the machines, Andino wrote in the email. If there were questions about the system then Horry County should do the testing and not the town, she wrote.

“Unauthorized tampering with the voting equipment could be a crime and it places the integrity of the entire statewide voting system in jeopardy,” Andino wrote. “

Andino said that Horry County should make a final request for the voting machines and then ask the county sheriff to help get back the equipment.

“This issue needs to be resolved today,” she wrote.

So on Monday Horry County filed paperwork in court asking a judge to issue an order requiring the town to hand over the election equipment.

On Tuesday Horry County Sheriff deputies went to town hall to execute the claim and delivery order issued by the court, said Capt. Steve Parker of the sheriff’s office. Town officials would not tell deputies where the machines were located, he said.

Finally after about four hours, the town’s police chief came and let the sheriff’s deputies into an area in town hall where the machines were kept, Parker said. The Sheriff’s office had called a locksmith to unlock the area but did not have to use him, he said.

Before the machines were found, the town’s Mayor Retha Pierce, said the town was not going to let the voting machines go, calling them evidence that votes were not recorded properly during the election.

Pierce was defeated in the Nov. 1 municipal election, but after a protest hearing later that month the town’s election commission tossed out the results and ordered that a new election be held in six months. Meanwhile, the commission said, the town’s current leadership should stay in place. No specific date has been released for a new election.

“They’re trying to take our evidence and that is an injustice,” she said, adding that the town has asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the Attorney General’s office to investigate what happened with the machine.

The machines were discarded from Florida in 2006 and Pierce says the machines resulted in fraudulent results with some votes counted towards the wrong candidates, Pierce said.

She said she didn’t want to let the sheriff’s office take the machines, even with a court order, because it is easy to get a court order if you know the right people.

A Nov. 14 letter from town manager Benny Webb to deputy Horry County attorney Sanford Graves said the town believed the machines were flawed and that there were concerns about how the outdated machines recorded votes. “It is the belief of candidates and many concern citizens that these machines were and still are severely compromised and that the compromising of these machines rendered the outcome of the election in serious doubt,” Webb wrote.

The Atlantic Beach Police Department has an investigation about the machines and the town was advised by its attorney not to give up the machines until a review by an expert, Webb’s email said.

The letter also hinted that the town would only turn over the equipment with a court order.

The machines could be used as evidence in a civil or criminal court and so do not have to be given back to the person or organization that caused the harm without a court order, the email said.

Town council member Jake Evans, who won the November election before the results were overturned, said that he was surprised that the voting machines hadn’t been returned.

“I just don’t understand that,” he said. “Everybody wants an explanation.”

Evans said he wants more investigations into the election and wants the new election to happen sooner than the election commission originally said.

“This entire election was a scandal and a conspiracy and what they did to break every election law in the book is glaring. There’s just no hiding from the things they’ve done with this election and this is just a start. I’m sure there’s more behind this,” he said.

The last town council meeting was cancelled because not enough members attended to take any votes. Some of the board members wanted to fire the town manager at the meeting, said Evans who was out of town for work and could not attend the meeting.

Another town council member, Donnell Thompson, whose term was set to expire, announced that he quit the council Tuesday, saying “it was the best thing for me to do.”