Long lines to vote and new ballots: Elections office says major changes are needed
The 2020 Presidential Election’s shadow is starting to loom in Horry County, and the local election board is already planning for it.
Horry County elections director Sandy Martin said her office needs more help. The population growth in Horry County has correlated with an expanding electorate, but her staff is smaller now than it was when fewer people lived here.
While high turnout was a factor, the lack of staff and volunteers slowed the recent election. On Nov. 6, when Horry County voters went to the polls, they were met with long lines and understaffed elections. The unofficial results were not finalized until after midnight Nov. 7.
Martin told the election board Thursday morning that she has asked for an additional staff member for years, but the funding has not been approved by County Council members.
“I understand this office doesn’t make money, but we’re still important,” she said. “We put them where they are.”
Last week, Martin presented to the County Council’s Administration Committee about what resources the election board needed to cut down on the wait times from the past election. Committee Chair Harold Worley said the elections staff did an admirable job with the resources they had, and council wants to help fix the problem.
“The biggest thing is staff, we need more staff,” she said this week.
The county election process relies heavily on temporary workers or poll volunteers, both of which need to go through training before they can be put on staff. Martin said her office has a lot of success with volunteers, but sometimes it doesn’t work out.
And at the end of the day, she said temporary workers are not held as accountable as a full-time staff member, and sometimes volunteers do not show up or know how to work the computers.
“It’s not something you can do with one click of a button,” Martin said.
Board member Charlie Bellamy said his committee must keep up this fight, and keep reminding council members to give more to the elections board.
The discussion came on the cusp of the committee agreeing to negotiate a deal with Surfside Beach to take over the town’s election. Martin said the county already does a lot of work helping municipalities with elections and this plan would not be a great strain on her office or Surfside voters.
Toward the end of the meeting, Martin told the committee members that starting in 2020 there will be a new election process, per information given from the state. She did not have exact details of what this new system will entail, but she suspects it will be a paper ballot system.
“We’re pretty sure it is going to be some sort of paper-based system that is going to require a lot more space than we currently have,” she said.
This story was originally published December 14, 2018 at 12:15 PM.
