Scripps Howard News
Service
South Carolina County illustrates voting difficulties
By Thomas Hargrove
June 21, 2004
SUMTER, S.C. - An unraveled paperclip in the hands of Sumter County
Elections Commissioner Lucinda Macias became a vital tool for preserving
democracy in South Carolina.
"Shhhh! This is a punch-card stylus," Macias said as she carefully
punched duplicate copies of dozens of bent, battered and torn ballots that came
into the Sumter County Courthouse during the June 8 South Carolina Republican
and Democratic primaries for federal, state, county and municipal offices.
"Some even had masking tape on the cards. I guess the folks at the polls
were trying to fix them. This isn't rocket science! They'd never go through the
(ballot counting) machine like that," Macias said as she started copying
another punch card. "So we just duplicate them. And, hopefully, they will
go through."
Hundreds of counties throughout America must employ similar techniques to
lower the rate of tabulation errors, according to election experts.
"It's certainly unsightly to look at, especially if you've never seen it
before," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services Inc. and a
nationally recognized consultant on election procedures. "The punch cards
are fragile and need to be treated carefully. And election officials must have
procedures set up to handle damaged cards. This is a common problem."
Thirteen of the 46 counties in South Carolina used punch-card voting systems
during the 2000 presidential election. The Palmetto State chronically suffers
one of America's worst rates of undervoting, with tens of thousands of ballots
routinely not registering in major races like president, governor and U.S.
senator, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of election returns.
An undervote is the difference between the number of ballots cast and the number
of votes that actually get counted.
Four years ago, 50,812 out of the 1.4 million ballots cast in South Carolina
did not register a vote for president. That means 3.5 percent of state voters
did not have a preference for president, officially at least.
Election experts warn that officials should be suspicious if the undervote
for major races exceeds 2 percent. But several counties routinely experience
undervotes several times higher. Kershaw County, north of Sumter, reported only
19,627 presidential votes were counted out of 21,474 ballots cast, an apparent
undervote of 8.6 percent.
"I can't understand that," Bonnie Depperman, vice chairman of the
Kershaw County Board of Registration and Elections, said upon hearing of the
undervote in her county. "Could there be something wrong with the counting
process? Whatever this is, we'd like to get it stopped."
Yet the June 8 primary went smoothly in Kershaw County. About 98.7 percent of
the combined Republican and Democratic ballots registered a vote for U.S.
Senate. Although the Senate race was the top political issue in South Carolina
in June, an undervote of slightly more than 1 percent could mean some voters
were undecided but wanted to participate in other races.
The smooth election in Kershaw County was certainly due, in part, to Kerry
Morgan, a computer operator for the local school system and part-time tabulator
for county elections.
"Fear is a great motivator. And I'm always afraid something will go
wrong," Morgan said as he lightly pounded the top of the Triad Model EX-1
card reader with his fist to keep the ballots from jamming.
Morgan said the card reader easily jams under humid conditions or when
ballots are printed on different thicknesses of cardboard or are dyed different
colors. On June 8, he regularly had to rerun the Democratic primary ballots
printed on blue cardboard.
"Blues are usually the difficult ones," Morgan said. "I always
expect there will be some problems with the cards. Sometimes they will curl up
in the box."
The problems in Kershaw County paled compared to the labors that officials
faced in Sumter County. Scott Vandyke, pastor of the East Dayton, Ohio, Church
of Christ and a part-time elections assistant for Triad Governmental Systems of
Xenia, Ohio, nearly half of the time had to repeat a run of computer cards
because of bent ballots or tallies that didn't agree with precinct reports.
Sumter County voters cast 33,433 ballots in the 2000 general election, but
only 30,671 registered a vote for president, an apparent undervote of 8.3
percent.
"I'm sure the problem is not with the cards. And, generally, people will
vote correctly," said Vandyke.
Only 91.4 percent of the 7,486 Democratic primary ballots registered a vote
for U.S. Senate this month, while 96.3 percent recorded a vote for the local
sheriff's race and 94.6 percent registered for state auditor.
Why the difference?
"That is something I just don't usually look at," conceded Sumter
County Elections Director Patricia Jefferson. "I don't know. I just don't
know. These are good questions."
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