Voters wait to cast a ballot during early voting at the West Columbia Community Center, one of six locations in Lexington County, on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (Abraham Kenmore/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA – Over 1.5 million South Carolinians voted early this year for the general election, or more than 45% of all registered voters in the state.
“We are thrilled to see this record-breaking turnout during the early voting period as we head into a highly anticipated Election Day,” Howard Knapp, executive director of the State Election Communication, in a statement Monday. “If you haven’t cast your ballot yet, get to the polls tomorrow and exercise your right to vote.”
According to the commission, 1.47 million people voted early in person in the two-week window between Oct. 21 and Nov. 2, and about 100,000 people have voted absentee by mail so far.
This is the first presidential election in South Carolina with true, no-excuse-needed early voting under a law passed in May 2022.
The total number of early votes cast surpassed the roughly 1.3 million people who voted early in 2020, under temporary rules around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Four years ago, the Legislature allowed people to vote absentee in person without needing an excuse for voting early. Previously, voters had to pick an allowed exemption for voting ahead of Election Day — or fib. Legislators suspended that rule amid the pandemic, but the changes were temporary. The 2022 law set up true, uniform early voting.
Nearly three times more people voted in person early this year compared to two years ago.
‘The longest line we’ve had’
As early voting drew to a close last week, activists and candidates made last-minute pitches for their candidates as close as they could legally get.
State law requires campaigning to stay 500 feet from poll entrances. Before 2022, the distance was 200 feet.
On Friday, voters coming to the West Columbia Community Center, one of six early voting locations in Lexington County, a GOP stronghold, might have driven past a pickup truck adorned with Trump flags. Across the street several people held signs for down-ballot Republican candidates.
One of the sign holders, Sharon Whitacre, 72, said she was in Gaston earlier in the day before coming to West Columbia. She said she was happy to speak with anyone who stopped by on their way to the polls.
“We like meeting everybody,” she said. “We know we’re not going to change their whole philosophy, but we might … give them one little thing to think about that’ll change them in the future.”
Whitacre had a sign for Jason Guerry, a Republican running against state Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, for a Senate seat. The seat is open by the retirement of Democrat Nikki Setzler, who has represented the district since 1976.
The line was long headed into the early voting location, but people seemed to be moving through quickly.
Cliff Springs, a candidate for the Lexington District Two school board, was out shaking hands and answering voter questions, hoping to pick up a few undecided voters on their way in.
“Yesterday it hardly got out the door, so I was thinking maybe people were done,” he said of the line at the community center. “I come out here (today) and this is the longest line we’ve had the whole two weeks.”
That early voting location saw about 1,600 voters Friday, the most of any day during early voting.
One of those voters, Edward Manuel, 50, said he voted for former President Donald Trump and Republicans down the ballot.
“I’m a conservative, so I’m voting for life, it’s very important to me,” said Manuel, who runs a local driving school. “The economy and all that, I trust more in Trump and his policies.”
Blake Wilson was voting in his first election. The 18-year-old high school student said he met one of the candidates for school board in Lexington District One and was excited to support her.
Wilson said he cast his first presidential vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, and he was particularly concerned about access to abortion.
“Her beliefs line up with mine,” he said of Harris.
Voting early in the Upstate
In the Upstate, Todd Bowman, 27, of Anderson was one of about 1,200 people last Tuesday to vote at the county elections office on Main Street in Anderson. Getting through the line took about 40 minutes, he said.
Bowman, a construction worker, said he supported Donald Trump for president and other Republicans on the ballot.
“This inflation is really hurting people,” Bowman said, as a preacher across the street from the elections office urged voters to trust God rather than government.
Bowman said immigration was also a top concern.
“We need to close the border,” Bowman said.
A poll worker said some Anderson residents had faced a wait time of more than two hours during the early voting period.
On Saturday at the Watkins Community Center in the small Anderson County town of Honea Path, less than 15 people waited in line.
Mary Geren, 49, waited only about 20 minutes to cast a vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
“She’s the best candidate, the most qualified,” said Geren, an English professor. “As a woman, she supports bodily autonomy. It alarms me that my 18-year-old daughter has fewer rights in terms of reproductive health and bodily autonomy than I and my grandmother did.”
Geren said that on the down-ballot races, she voted for a mix of both Democrats and Republicans.
Tuesday is the last day to vote. On Election Day, polls open at 7 a.m. and technically close at 7 p.m., though precincts won’t close until the last person in line at 7 p.m. has voted. Unlike early voting, when voters had the option of going to any polling site within the county where they’re registered, on Election Day, voters need to go to their assigned precinct.
Mail-in absentee ballots can be returned in person through 7 p.m. Everyone returning an absentee ballot or voting for themselves will be asked to show photo identification.
SC Daily Gazette columnist Paul Hyde contributed to this report from Anderson County.