Category Archives: SC News/Commentary

State Election Commission Complicates Voting Procedures for Ex-offenders

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Voting Rights Remain Unclear for SC Citizens Who Have Served Their Sentences

In light of a recent study that revealed confusion among county election directors regarding procedures for ex-offenders’ voting rights, the State Election Commission (SEC) yesterday sent a memorandum to the 46 county election directors advising them that they “may ask the voter for proof of completion of their sentence, but this is not required by law.”

This discretionary additional requirement may depress the vote among ex-offenders, said Brett Bursey, director of the SC Progressive Network. “If additional proof is not required by law, the State Election Commission should be advising the counties not to require proof that an offender has completed a sentence. This added requirement burdens the 18,000 citizens a year who have paid their debt to society, and may result in them not voting.”

South Carolina’s voter registration form includes a “Voter Declaration” that the registrant must sign, and face criminal penalties for falsely taking the oath. No additional proof is required to prove their US citizenship or mental competency. Ten counties accept the oath as proof that the registrant is not serving a criminal sentence.

On Sept. 17, the SC Progressive Network and the SC ACLU held a press conference to release the results of a study that found county election directors around the state had different methods of dealing with ex-offenders who wanted to register to vote. The study concluded that, since there were no laws regulating the procedure, all counties should simply allow ex-offenders to register by signing the registration form.

“We daily encounter citizens who tell us they can’t vote because they are ex-offenders.” Bursey said. “Unfortunately, the citizens don’t know the laws, the county election boards don’t know the laws, and the State Election Commission is unwilling to define the laws.”

While the SEC has recognized that there is no law requiring ex-offenders to provide proof of completion of sentence to register, its officials claim they are unable to direct the independent county election boards not to do so.

When asked if they will issue a press release advising ex-offenders of their right to register, an SEC spokesperson said, “That’s not our job.”

Sept. 24 SC Election Commission memorandum:

Any person who is convicted of a felony or an offense against the election laws is not qualified to register or to vote, unless the disqualification has been removed by service of the sentence, unless sooner pardoned.  Service of sentence includes completion of any prison/jail time, probation, parole, and payment of restitution.

Federal and state courts provide the SEC with lists of persons convicted of felonies or crimes against the election laws. Those persons are removed from the state’s list of active, registered voters. The SEC notifies each voter whose name is deleted from the list. Voters have 20 days from the date the notice is mailed to appeal. Appeals must be made to the SEC.

Once a person who was convicted of a felony or offense against the election laws serves their sentence; they may register or re-register.

The following process should be followed for voters who are re-registering after being made inactive due to a conviction.

• The voter must re-register with the county voter registration board by submitting a voter registration application.
• The board makes the final determination of whether the voter meets the qualifications to register.
• The board may ask the voter for proof of completion of their sentence, but this is not required by law.
• The voter is either added as a new voter or reinstated to the voter registration system
• If the board determines a voter should be reinstated to active status, the board must notify the SEC in writing. Once notification is received, the SEC will reinstate the voter.

Thank you,

Chris Whitmire
Public Information Officer

South Carolina State Election Commission 
Post Office Box 5987
Columbia, S.C. 29250
Tel: 803.734.9070
Fax: 803.734.9366

Pride ’08

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Gay rights activists marched in downtown Columbia on Sept. 20, then joined thousands at Finlay Park to celebrate South Carolina’s annual Pride Festival. SC Progressive Network member groups with booths on the park grounds were: AFFA, Garden of Grace United Church of Christ, SC Equality, SC GLPM, PFLAG, SC Gay and Lesbian Business Guild and Sean’s Last Wish. The Progressive Network’s Missing Voter Project continued its voter registration drive, and brought in new individual members to our coalition.

It was a day of fun fellowship and solidarity. Congratulations to all the organizers for a successful Pride Week!

For Pride photos, click here. (Thanks to Jim Blanton, Ed McClain and Sarah Gibb for contributing snapshots.)

Results mixed in voting rights study

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State restores rights when sentences finished

By Jim Davenport

Associated Press

Sept. 18

COLUMBIA — An American Civil Liberties Union survey released Wednesday finds South Carolina election officials generally know that ex-felons can vote when they’ve completed their sentences. But the survey also shows that those officials don’t do so well when they are responding to more specific questions that affect 1,500 people completing prison, jail or probation time every month.

The civil rights organization has conducted similar surveys in 20 states, said Rachel Bloom, who oversees the group’s ex-felon voting programs. “The news isn’t all bad in South Carolina,” Bloom said.

The surveys were conducted in the state’s 46 counties with college students phoning and telling an election official they were conducting a survey on felon voting.

The results showed correct answers from 40 counties when asked about whether people could register to vote if they had completed parole, probation or incarceration time for a felony convictions. However, just over half got it right when asked about voting after being convicted in another state or for a federal offense.

South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said that some of the questions appeared to be confusing and that he wasn’t sure about the methodology used. “It’s hard for me to put a value on what their percentages are,” Whitmire said.

Still, he said, “county voter registration officials can do better jobs. We all can do better at what we do.”

The ACLU and South Carolina Progressive Network say the survey’s results show local election officials need to have a better understanding of the law. “The history of voter registration in the United States is a history of preventing people from voting and we’re still living that history,” said Brett Bursey. the Progressive Network’s executive director.

The groups called for better training of election officials and law changes that would restore voting rights immediately after someone leaves prison or jail. They also want to add the state Corrections Department and Parole and Probation to a list of agencies responsible for registering voters.

Whitmire said there are regular training sessions for county election officials and the Election Commission doesn’t oppose allowing those two agencies to join others as so-called “motor-voter” agencies.

A handful of state agencies register voters now, including the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Department of Social Service, Department of Health and Environmental Control and others that serve people with disabilities, such as the state Commission for the Blind.

Bursey also said the state quickly notifies felons after they’re convicted that they’ve lost voting rights, but does little afterward to tell them when they can vote.

Whitmire said letters mailed in the future to notify felons they’ve lost voting rights will tell convicts they can re-register once they’ve completed their sentences.ACLU: SC officials know when ex-felons may vote.

Greenville activist featured in new book

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Sean’s Last Wish founder Elke Kennedy is featured in the soon to be released book CRISIS, 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. It is edited by Mitchell Gold, founder of Faith in America, with Mindy Drucker.

CRISIS is an expose of the fear, isolation, depression, and even suicidal feelings young gay people face from the time they realize they are gay until they have a healthy coming out. For many gay adults, the traumatic teenage years are buried in memory as a painful time to be left behind and forgotten. But, those who bravely recalled and contributed their stories to CRISIS describe experiences that are unfortunately universal for gay youth. 

Well-known successful members of the gay community, such as Bishop Gene Robinson, actor Richard Chamberlain, ambassador Jim Hormel and US Reps Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank, share what it was like to live a lie every day, without support from family, friends, church, or school-and how they triumphed over the challenges. And a number of young people detail personal experiences that make clear the same challenges unfortunately continue today.

CRISIS is designed to make parents, clergy, teachers, politicians, and the media aware of the ongoing crisis young gay people experience in our culture today and understand how to stop it.

In addition to being an inspiring and helpful personal resource, it is an excellent gift for that someone you know whose heart and mind you’d like to transform from hostility to love and from rejection to acceptance. 

CRISIS will be published in mid-September. Pre-orders are available now at Amazon.com and CrisisBook.org.

“I Believe” license plates up for debate

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On Sunday, Aug. 10, at 7pm the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Columbia will hold a panel discussion about the proposed South Carolina “I Believe” license plates, which has resulted in a lawsuit. (See earlier post for background on the controversy.)

The panel will include Kevin Hall, an attorney with Nelson Mullins, the law firm that will be defending the Dept. of Motor Vehicles in the lawsuit. He will join the Rev. Michael Frisina, pastor of Calvary Chapel, and one of his parishioners, Carl Sohm, in defending the constitutionality of the plate. Speaking in opposition to the plate will be two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit: the Rev. Dr. Tom Summers, a retired United Methodist minister, and the Rev. Dr. Monty Knight, pastor of the First Christian Church of Charleston and president of the Charleston AU chapter.

The UU Fellowship is at 2701 Heyward St., corner of Heyward and Woodrow in Shandon.

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Network offers free training to maximize voter registration with state-of-the-art tools

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By Becci Robbins

The SC Progressive Network is gearing up its Missing Voter Project to find, engage and register South Carolinians who aren’t voting. In the 2004 presidential year election, slightly less than half of the voting-age population turned out, putting South Carolina 42nd in voter participation. In 2006, for mid-term elections, slightly more than a third showed up at the polls (35 percent).

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“There is nothing more important to a healthy democracy than an engaged citizenry,” said Network Director Brett Bursey. “Americans should be alarmed at how the monied interests in this country have hijacked the electoral process. Ordinary citizens are getting the short end of the stick by not participating in elections.”

The US ranks 138th in the world in voter turn out, falling between Armenia and Nigeria, according to a 2002 study by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Stockholm.

“While we are busy trying to export democracy around the world, ironically, too many of us are not practicing it here,” said Rev. Dr. Bennie Colclough, who serves as the Network’s Cochair. “This could have something to do with the fact that we are the only wealthy nation that doesn’t provide education and health care to its citizens as part of their democratic social contract.”

The Missing Voter Project is designed to take voter registration beyond traditional party building or drumming up support for a specific campaign or candidate. The MVP is an effort to engage new voters in a larger movement for social change based on citizen empowerment.

“I can’t tell someone that registering and voting is going to improve their life,” Bursey said.” The system itself is broken. Due to the creation of ‘safe’ districts for incumbent legislators, we have the least competitive legislative races in the nation, with most seats being uncontested. And the sad reality is that 98 percent of the candidates who spend the most money are the ones who win. That’s not an election, it’s an auction.”

The Missing Voter Project is a civic engagement program with a special emphasis on minority youth. Since 2004, the MVP has provided street maps identifying unregistered and infrequent voters in minority precincts throughout rural South Carolina, and has registered more than 6,000 voters. About half of South Carolina’s black population is registered, and about half of those registered turn out to vote. The service has been offered statewide to other nonprofits to enhance their voter registration work.

The Missing Voter Project is built on the idea that registering and voting is simply the first step to building power at the grassroots level. The intention is to create a movement of voters with enough power to help set political priorities that meet their needs rather than the needs of politicians and corporate interests.

“Most folks in this state are not voting because they don’t believe it will make a difference,” Bursey said. “But imagine how we could change life in South Carolina if we didn’t leave running the government to those with access to wealth. It’s a long-term effort we are proposing, but people are hungry for change. We want to offer them a way to make it happen.”

The Network is organizing free, nonpartisan voter registration training sessions throughout the state to show groups and individuals how to use high-tech maps to maximize their registration efforts. The two-hour training sessions are 7-9pm in the following cities:

Winnsboro: Aug. 9, Glover’s Memorial Chapel, 423 N. Congress St. (Network will partner with Sigma Theta, Fairfield Co. NAACP, SC Voter Education Project)

Charleston: Aug. 14, Morris Brown Church, 13 Morris St. (Network will partner with Charleston NAACP, SC Voter Education Project)

Columbia: Aug. 19, St. John’s Baptist, corner of Farrow and Beltline: (Network will partner with Columbia NAACP, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, SC Voter Education Project)

Greenville: Aug. 21: Mt. Pleasant Community Center, 715 S Fairfield Rd: (Network will partner with Greenville NAACP, League of Women Voters, SC Voter Education Project)

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SC & NC commissions urged to revoke Duke nuclear cost approvals

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Feds tell Westinghouse its design is off track; doubts over new nukes grow

Federal regulators now say a nuclear plant design touted as “certified” in 2004 remains years from completion, more delays in the design approval process are likely, and problems involving major components and plant systems persist. In response, public interest groups in North and South Carolina today filed legal motions calling for revocation of $230 million in preconstruction costs approved by both states’ electricity regulatory commissions in May and June for two new Duke Energy reactors.

Friends of the Earth and NC WARN told utilities commissioners in both states today that escalating design problems threaten Duke Energy’s chances of ever completing two new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors it wants to build near Gaffney, SC. They also say the delays mean Duke cannot provide a firm project cost estimate for the Lee Nuclear Station by year-end, a commitment the company made to both commissions during hearings over the preconstruction costs.

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has served notice that the ‘nuclear revival’ is in trouble,” Tom Clements, of Friends of the Earth’s Columbia, SC, office said today.  “Duke Energy’s customers should not be stuck holding the bag if the company keeps pouring millions into that risky project.  The state regulatory agencies must now reverse their earlier decisions to approve Duke’s reactor project and require that the company not come back for reconsideration until the reactor design is finalized.” 

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Faith matters

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Check out Publishers Weekly’s review of Candace Chellew-Hodge’s forthcoming book, Bulletproof Faith. Rev. Chellew-Hodge serves as a pastor at the Garden of Grace United Church of Christ (a member of the SC Progressive Network) in Columbia and edits the online publication Whosoever.

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Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge (right) joins Rev. Tom Summers (center) and Rev. Bennie Colclough in facilitating a group discussion at a Network retreat at Penn Center.

Freshman senator goes sophomoric

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Last week, Anderson County Republican Sen. Kevin Bryant posted a “funny” picture on his blog comparing Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden, saying the only difference between them is a little BS.

Yes, really.

After realizing not everyone saw the humor in it, he removed the picture. The comments are still up — at least the ones he hasn’t purged — but he is now trying to change the subject.

State Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler issued the following statement:

“This degrading blog post is a desperate and juvenile attempt by Kevin Bryant to get attention for his troubled reelection effort. South Carolina voters, both Democratic and Republican, hate to see this type of ugly campaign tactics from our candidates,” said Fowler. “Of course, this is just the latest in a string of John McCain’s supporters and surrogates whose remarks have to be denounced by the GOP nominee. Kevin Bryant was an early McCain backer, but it’s time Senator McCain pitched him off the campaign bus. Senator Bryant’s actions are inexcusable and Republican Party leaders like Katon Dawson and Mark Sanford should join me in saying so. The residents of District 3 deserve to be represented by a leader who will campaign and serve with integrity, maturity, and honor. They should elect Dr. Marshall Meadors in the fall.”

The GOP has remained strangely silent on the matter.