‘Your vote is your voice’: First-time voters describe Election Day in Horry County
Terrance Middleton drove about two and a half hours back home to Horry County to make sure his vote counted.
The 20-year-old goes to Claflin University, an HBCU in Orangeburg, but didn’t want to mail his ballot, so he dropped it off in person. This is Middleton’s first time voting in a presidential election.
The Horry County elections and Voter Registration office reported 18,805 new registrations in the county in 2020, with 10,697 coming in a four month period before the registration deadline in early October. It is not clear how many of those new registrations are first time voters but the 18-24 year old demographic makes up only 8,322 of the 251,885 registered voters in Horry County. That’s just over 3%.
Middleton said politics are openly discussed among his friends and voting was something he needed to do. He is the head of the NAACP chapter at his university and has put resources online to help people register to vote.
“Your vote is your voice,” he said. “And right now, that’s the least we can do to better America.”
Middleton paid close attention to the presidential ballot and the senate race. He is a self-described Democrat voting for former Vice President Joe Biden and thinks the party better represents the middle class and the Black community.
The presidential race and senate were some of the only contested races on the Horry County ballot with a majority of down ballot candidates running unopposed. It was a similar story in Georgetown County.
President Donald Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham both won by more than 10 percentage points in South Carolina, according to data on the state’s election website Wednesday morning.
After voting early, Middleton said he felt good and that he didn’t have to wait in a long line to drop his ballot off. Some of his roommates also went home to vote and they are all “anxiously waiting” for results, Middleton said.
Donald “Don” Cohn is the Horry county democratic party chair. He said that while events they would usually hold to register voters were canceled because of the pandemic, they still saw a spike in first time registrations.
“I think that everybody sees this as the most consequential election in our lifetime,” he said.
Cohn said he feels that the fate of the country is at stake. Issues like healthcare, women’s rights, voting rights and democracy as a whole are on his mind this election cycle. He and other democrats are voting for a change, he said.
“I was not happy with the people that we have in office, not only the president,” he said. “I feel like we need new leadership [in South Carolina], Republicans have been leading us and here we are near the bottom in every category.”
His counterpart on the other side of the political spectrum, Dreama Purdue also thinks the fate of the country is at stake. The head of the Horry County GOP doesn’t want to see the United states lean too far left.
“If the Democrats are elected, our country will be, maybe not immediately, will be almost Venezuela, we will be almost a socialist country,” she said. “It’s not a bright future if the Democrats win.”
Purdue says her organization doesn’t see large numbers of people coming in to register, mainly because people can register when they get their driver’s license at the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles.
Still, she said there has been a spike in the interest in this election.
“It is an election between prosperity and having a great economy and taking care of all of our people,” she said. “And then the other side, who wants to take us towards socialism.”
Purdue said she has been involved in politics for many years. She enjoys giving people information they may not have had and helping a candidate she truly believes in.
“It just gets in your blood,” she said.
Tuesday’s election was the first presidential election Ramsey Cook, who missed the age cutoff for the 2016 election by nine days, and was eager to cast a ballot this time around.
“We say, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”
The Coastal Carolina University senior voted early so that he could spend his day working the polls at the Horry County Memorial library in Conway. It was his second time working the polls and described it as an “honor” to be a part of the election and see people have their voices heard.
Because of the pandemic South Carolina altered some of their voting rules to allow more people to vote early. They hoped to cut down on long lines and big groups of people at the polls.
Cook describes himself as a Republican and started getting interested in politics watching the news in high school. He pays attention to the economy and social issues and thinks the coronavirus pandemic is the biggest issue facing the country.
“I’d say that’s mostly where I got my political position from,” he said.
Cook feels the impact the pandemic has had on the economy and everyday life. He wants things to get back to pre-pandemic days, but he doesn’t want to get anybody sick.
“We can just get back to how things are normal, be able to get together, be able to sit close to people again,” he said. “And you know, be able to hug, shake hands, especially me being from the south that’s kind of what I’ve been used to.”
Seeing small businesses in Conway affected by the pandemic and seeing members of the community rally to support them cemented his decision to vote for President Donald Trump. Cook, along with the rest of the nation, are now waiting on results from states that could take days.
“I’m very very nervous,” Cook said, remembering history lessons about the 2000 election and the subsequent recount in Florida.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 3:11 PM.
