Jim Campbell speaks at Network conference at Penn Center
Our dear friend, teacher, colleague, and mentor Jim Campbell died on Jan. 30 at age 95. His involvement in the SC Progressive Network goes back more two decades, and we are all richer for it.
He was generous with his time and talent, always eager to share his vast knowledge of history and the radical political analysis that informed his life’s work.
We are planning a tribute in conjunction with the upcoming session of the Modjeska Simkins School, which begins in March. Meanwhile, here are a few links worth watching and reading.
WATCH: UofSC history professor Dr. Bobby Donaldson interviews James Campbell in 2017 at Avery Research Center in Charleston.
A nonpartisan hotline is now live for voters in South Carolina who have voting-related questions or want to report problems they experience or witness at the polls.
The Election Protection Coalition, in alliance with in-state nonpartisan organizations, is working to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to vote in South Carolina. In addition to the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, trained nonpartisan volunteers will be on the ground across the state to provide voters assistance at the polls on Election Day.
“This will be the 12th year that this free, nonpartisan service has helped South Carolina voters with problems at the polls,” said SC Progressive Network Education Fund Director Brett Bursey. “Beyond providing help to voters, reports to the hotline provide the only nonpartisan, real-time, statewide audit of the state’s election system that helps identify problems to address before the next election.”
By calling the hotline, voters can confirm their registration status, find their polling location, and get answers to questions about proper identification at the polls.
Voters who have been required to vote a provisional ballot should call the hotline for advice prior to the certification hearing on their provisional ballot that take place in each county’s election office on Nov. 6.
“Voters must be aware that the state’s photo ID requirements will be enforced for voting in person at all locations” said Susan Dunn, attorney for the ACLU of South Carolina. All voters are required to show a valid ID that includes: driver’s license, DMV-issued ID card, passport, concealed weapons permit, federal military ID, or their photo-voter registration card with them to the polls on Election Day.
Dunn said, “We recommend to voters without one of the accepted IDs to trade their paper voter registration card in at their county elections office for one with a photo on it.”
Susan Dunn answers questions during Oct. 3 election protection session.
Join SC ACLU attorney Susan Dunn and SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey for a training on Zoom to help protect voters in the upcoming election. Trainings will be held on Oct. 10, 15, 19, and 24.
Volunteers will monitor polling locations, direct voters with questions to the national Election Protection hotline, and report concerns to local election monitoring headquarters. Due to COVID-19, volunteers will not be asked to go inside any polling place. We will provide masks for all volunteers to wear.
We will work polling locations across the state, with an emphasis on Beaufort, Charleston, Greenville, Horry and Richland counties.
All volunteers are required to attend a 1.5 hour training. We ask that volunteers serve at least four hours on Election Day. No experience needed.
Given the unique challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SC Progressive Network Education Fund has filed suit to extend voter registration beyond the Oct. 6 deadline for mail-in applications in South Carolina.
A hearing before US District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis is scheduled for 11am on Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the Mathew Perry Federal Court House in Columbia. The hearing is open to the public with appropriate ID and face coverings.
The Columbia-based Network Education Fund, a 25-year-old nonpartisan policy and research institute, has been monitoring the state’s election and campaign systems since its formation in 1996. Since 2004, the Network’s Missing Voter Project (MVP) has been doing voter education and registration in the state’s historically under-represented communities.
Network Director Brett Bursey said, “We are nonpartisan, so we don’t focus on candidates. Our job is to help citizens understand how state and local government policies affect their lives so they can make informed decisions about registering and voting.”
For 16 years, trained MVP volunteers have registered voters at events and locations around the Midlands, several thousand in each presidential election year. This year, the MVP partnered with the SC NAACP State Conference to train young Black members on nonpartisan registration practices in 26 counties. Those grassroots efforts were complicated by the pandemic and our commitment to keep volunteers and the public safe.
“Since March,” Bursey said, “health centers, bus transit stations, food banks, and schools have been shuttered or restricted, and large public gatherings have gone virtual. As a result, we have registered just several hundred citizens.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, South Carolina is one of only six states that close voter registration 30 days before elections. The Network’s complaint, filed on Oct. 2, points out that the current 30-day provision became law in the 1895 State Constitution, which was written specifically to exclude Black citizens from voting. “The 30-day ban was implemented before the age of cars and electronic transmission of voter registration documents,” Bursey said. In 26 states, citizens may register and vote on the same day.
The complaint notes that the State Election Commission in the past has supported moving the registration period closer to the elections, citing extensions the SEC has provided due to hurricanes. “There is no doubt that pandemic safety measures and government restrictions have prevented some citizens from registering and participating in the next election,” Bursey said.
The SC Progressive Network Education Fund is represented in this case by Free Speech For People; Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP; and Burnette Shutt McDaniel P.A.
SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey talks with retired Sen. Phil Leventis and Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter about the Fair Maps SC campaign to end gerrymandering in South Carolina.
Leventis, elected in 1982, knows better than most how the game is played. “Having been involved in five reapportionments, I can tell you that it is driven primarily by partisan interests — keeping the majority or trying to gain the majority — and personal partisan interests, trying to keep a safe district for yourself. That’s a shame.”
Leventis believes that only citizens can take the politics out of drawing maps. “What we need is the most objective group we can get to design districts with the charge that they be competitive,” he said.
The fair maps plan is a way to do that.
“I’ve seen the fair maps plan, I’ve worked on the plan, and I’ve talked about it with other people, and it is a grand plan. That it is right and good is not enough to carry the day. This plan can compel legislators to take a vote on it. Nobody can compel legislators how to vote except their constituents.”
After two years research conducted by the Network’s nonpartisan Education Fund, Rep. Cobb-Hunter withdrew from redistricting legislation she sponsored in 2016, and introduced fair maps legislation in 2018.
The legislation to create a citizens redistricting commission includes a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to allow citizens to vote on the matter, letting people rather than politicians to draw district lines. Why the companion bills? “I’m a realist,” Cobb-Hunter explains. “I understand the process. The point of the resolution is to use the statutory authority of citizens to compel their local county councils, to compel the legislature to do things differently.”
History has shown that the legislature will not reform itself and willingly give up the power to draw district maps. The courts have provided no relief when it comes to gerrymandering.
“So for me and the Fair Maps Coalition that I’ve been working with it made sense to say Plan A was the General Assembly, Plan B was the courts, let’s try Plan C, which is the citizens.”
Elected in 1992, Cobb-Hunter is the longest-serving incumbent, longest-serving woman in the SC state legislature, and the longest-serving person of color in the history of that body. “The bottom line is that things have to change,” she said. “People ought to have choices, and the reality is that here in South Carolina voters simply don’t have choices. Competition is not part of our state legislative races, and that’s not good for democracy, it’s not good for the system, and it’s not good for legislators because they tend to focus on a few people in a House or Senate district [who elect them in their party’s primary].”
“The bottom line is that things have to change,” she said. “People ought to have choices, and the reality is that here in South Carolina voters simply don’t have choices. Competition is not part of our state legislative races, and that’s not good for democracy, it’s not good for the system, it’s not good for legislators because they tend to focus on a few people in a House or Senate district.”
Voters in South Carolina already have topped the record of 140 thousand by-mail ballots cast in the last general election, the State Election Commission said today. With 10 weeks to go before the November elections, the SEC has received more than 160 thousand applications for absentee ballots.
The SEC also reported: • All counties will be open on Sept. 28 for in-person absentee voting. • Over a third of the counties will open extension offices for in-person absentee voting and by-mail ballot return. • Drop boxes will be available at many county voter registration offices and extension offices. A list will be released by Sept. 28.
Reminders about the mail:
First-class mail is delivered 2-5 days after it is received by the US Postal Service.
Voters should submit their ballot request as soon as possible, but at least 15 days before Election Day.
Voters should mail their completed ballots as soon as possible, but no later than a week before Election Day.
Jim Campbell speaks at Network conference at Penn Center
