Welcome to Palmetto Perspectives.

I'm Thelisha Eaddy.

With just a few short weeks until election day, nineteen days to be exact.

There are many issues facing voters in South Carolina.

Is it safe to vote in person?

Who can vote absentee?

How do you know if your vote will count?

All important questions we will tackle tonight.

And you our viewers and listeners are invited to be a vocal part of this conversation.

Share your comments on our Facebook page at South Carolina ETV or South Carolina Public Radio.

Our Assistant General Manager, Adrienne Fairwell will take your comments on the air.

We've also assembled a panel of stakeholders.

They will take part in tonight's conversation by way of Webex.

Thank you very much for your insights this evening.

And joining us in our studio are Lynn Teague Vice President of Issues in Action with the South Carolina League of Women Voters, Lauren Harper CEO of CityBright a political consulting firm in Columbia, Sh'Kur Francis Pastor at Grace United Methodist Church in Anderson and Derek Black, a law professor and the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in constitutional law at the University of South Carolina.

We thank you all for being here as well this evening.

2020 has been a challenging year between racial unrest and public health crisis of the Coronavirus pandemic.

This year has forced us to live very different from our normal.

Many of our students and parents are schooling and working virtually or in a hybrid fashion, sporting events, graduations, church services and many other events have been canceled, postponed or dramatically changed.

Our elections are also impacted.

South Carolina's ETV Gavin Jackson shows us exactly how in this report.

We're less than twenty days away from election day and South Carolinians are already participating in numbers never seen before.

As of late Tuesday a little more than a week since in person and mail in absentee voting began 571 thousand ballots had been requested and 270 thousand ballots have been cast, which is more than half the total number of absentee ballots cast for the entire 2016 general election.

The pandemic is playing a major role in why many are voting absentee this year, especially after experiencing long lines due to poll worker shortages increasing consolidations during the June primaries.

Such problems aren't expected on November third said Chris Whitmire spokesman for the State Election Commission.

So, we have encouraging words from counties on that we don't see nearly the amount of polling place moves that we saw in June.

I have I've seen a couple, you know, I mean literally a handful out throughout the state.

That can change as we get closer to election day about polling place moves but nothing like we saw in June.

Several voter shared some of the reasons why they get to the polls early this year.

Well, we're aware that this is a very significant election.

We wanted to do our due diligence to kinda be prepared, help meet the potential you know crowds we may find or any potential issues with being able to vote due to a lot of polls being closed or the overall pandemic being an issue.

Of course to avoid long lines you know this was a very easy experience.

I can't believe how smoothly it went.

It's great.

I figure it was only 34 minutes for us to start way back at the end of the line until we got right here.

I'm not concerned about absentee balloting.

That's been done for years.

I feel like my vote will count.

Here in Lexington, I think we're fortunate that we don't have to go through some of the long lines and waits that are in other areas of town.

But I do think it's important to come out and come out early because we are very concerned about the selection.

But even as early voting got underway last week the U.S.

Supreme Court added another layer of complexity for mail in voters, by requiring their envelope to have a witness signature.

A measure previously thrown out by lower courts.

Whitmire explains.

You know our motto is every vote matters, every vote counts and you know our intention is to count ballots that were cast legally when this requirement was not in effect.

And that's our intention to do that, unless we were ordered by some authority not to do so.

And that's just kind of hard to me to imagine that happening.

This story really goes back prior to the pandemic.

County election officials for a long time have been asking legislators to remove the witness signature from the envelope because it really does nothing to help them verify that the voter signs the voters oath.

Like I said it could be any other person, so it's not like they can look this person up in the voter registration system.

They can't compare their signature to anything on file.

It literally is, they're just looking for a mark on that line and an address underneath.

Voters who requested a mail in ballot, but wish to vote in person absentee instead, should take their ballot with them to their county Election Commission for it to be disposed of and to prevent certification complications.

For SCETV I'm Gavin Jackson.

We want to first talk about ways to vote because there are options for people to exercise this very important right.

Normally, of course, we could vote in person on election day or by absentee ballot before a certain time if we met one of eighteen requirements.

But that recently changed.

And Lynn I want to come to you first, because your organization along with others advocated for that change.

Who can vote by absentee ballot?

Every eligible voter now.

For this election can vote by absentee ballot.

That is not as you said normally true.

Normally you have to fall into one of these eighteen categories.

Although I will say that there are quite a few reasons there and people should generally always be familiar with them.

But, this time around every eligible voter can vote absentee and therefore they have three choices.

They can vote absentee by mail.

They can vote absentee in person, which is early or they can wait till election day and vote in person then.

We've seen a lot of back and forth between the courts whether and a witness signature is required, Explain that for us because if you've been following the news, it got a little confusing.

And some people may still be confused.

Right.

I think I'm afraid some people are still confused.

And Chris Whitmire who just spoke was simply saying the same thing I would do, which is that signature is not useful for preventing any sort of election irregularity.

All it does is lead to votes being thrown out if it's not there.

And so we have argued over the years that it should be removed permanently as a requirement.

But we've had a back and forth.

There are people who disagree with us, who believe it really is an important requirement.

And so we have seen the courts give different opinions until we finally got to the federal Supreme Court, which said yes we're not going to second guess that requirement.

Everybody must have a witness signature unless their absentee ballot is in the hands of the election office by the seventh of October.

And that was a little leeway that was given for ballots that were still, had been sent in perhaps stuck in the mail already but did not have a signature.

The League has from day one told voters, it's safest to get them the signature if you can do that safely without risking your health because it is still in the courts.

So, we hope that people have done that.

We think a lot of people are choosing to bypass the complexities by simply going and voting early in person.

So people really need to pay attention when filling out their ballots.

Are there any options or any opportunity for people who may have missed that part, that they get a chance to correct that?

That's an excellent question.

The League of Women Voters filed in federal court with the help of lawyers committee for civil rights and ACLU attorney here in Charleston representing us as local council, because we saw that was inconsistent.

Some counties were notifying voters if there was a defect, a technical defect in their ballot and allowing them to cure that problem, to fix the problem.

Other counties did not offer that option.

We know that for instance 261 ballots were thrown out in 2016 for lack of a voter signature on the envelope.

And so what has happened is the state election commissioners voted and they voted this was recently.

They voted not to allow county offices to notify those voters about witness signatures.

most recently, last week and after we had filed our case pointing out that this was inconsistent, they notified the county election offices that they would not permit any notice to voters to allow them to correct the technical problems.

We believe that's very unfortunate.

Why should a legitimate ballot from a legitimate voter ever be thrown out unnecessarily?

The League of Women Voters really wants to see voters have the maximum opportunity to be heard.

Thank you.

Absentee in person voting began in South Carolina on Monday October fifth.

And we saw long lines and many of you may have been in some of those lines.

But we saw long lines average wait times of about an hour and nearly twenty thousand ballots cast just on that first day.

Today at five o'clock, we got some new numbers and I just wanna share those with you.

The total issued ballots, absentee ballots issued in the state, 637 thousand, total returned 388 thousand 221 thousand of those were in person and one hundred sixty seven thousand of those were by mail.

My next question for our esteemed panelists here is that we're seeing a lot of people take advantage and vote early by way of absentee.

What can people see in the next couple of weeks, when they head out to cast their ballots by absentee in person?

Do we think we're our lines - are we expecting long lines still?

What have you guys been hearing, seeing experiencing?

Well, I'm going home on Monday.

My family is waiting for me to come home and vote.

I texted a cousin last night and I said have you went and voted yet?

He said I'm waiting for you.

Like Ms Lynn said, this is very confusing.

I'm from Charleston and part of the problem is I have half of my family lives in Berkeley County, half of them live in Charleston County.

And so my grandmother called, she's registered to vote in Berkeley County and she saw that Charleston County has all of these satellite offices open because the North Charleston Coliseum has been flooded with voters coming to vote early.

But Berkeley County hasn't opened up a satellite office.

You have to go to their office all the way in Monck's Corner.

Well, Berkeley County is larger than the state of Rhode Island and my grandmother lives in Hannahan.

And she doesn't drive much and she works some.

So it was just too much for her to go by herself, so I told her I'll come home and I'll take you.

But what I am suggesting to people, my family and friends.

get out there and get it done.

These lines are just gonna get longer.

People are enthusiastic.

They're excited.

We have a shortage of poll workers.

And I don't think we were to be honest, were prepared to deal with this.

And so I'm just telling folks get out their vote early.

Do it as soon as possible.

So you think we will continue to see these long lines even until November third.

That is that is truly my belief that we will continue to see these lines.

I'd like to throw in here that very important thing you mentioned, the satellite locations.

Today within a few minutes I drove by Richland County's Harden street office and there was a long line down the block.

A few minutes later I drove by the satellite location at Gervais and Millwood - not crowded at all.

My husband voted early absentee there today and he was in and out in ten minutes.

So you can go to S.C.

votes.gov and see where your county has satellite locations and what the hours are.

And I think everybody should do that because there are maybe very short lines in some places, even while there's a big crowd at the main office.

South Carolina rolled out some new voter machines not that long ago.

Have there been many issues with these?

Do you think they're helping or hurting the process so far?

Up for stabs.

Well, it if you're speaking about sort of feeding your ballot into the machine, you know when I went in the primaries, I mean, quite honestly I was I was astounded at how much that slowed down the process.

And I did at that moment have worries about how is this really going to work when you've got in thousands of people in line.

It's just slow.

It seems like really old technology whereas you know like them or love them, they're old tablets.

You push the button You're done and that's it, you walked away.

You know, I understand you want a paper trail but at the same time if the result of the paper trail is that we've got a voting trail that can't be completed then that seems to be, you know, cutting off our nose despite our face, in some respect.

Sh'Kur, you mentioned talking with your family at home, I'm curious for each of you in different parts of South Carolina where you come from, what are some of the concerns that you're hearing from people from your hometown or from where you live today?

My folks are confused.

That is largely what I'm hearing.

They're really confused.

I have a grand-aunt, my grandmother's sister, I called her and I said 'Have you went and voted yet?'

And she said we can go vote?

And I said, "Yeah."

"The North Charleston Coliseum is open."

And she said, "I didn't know that."

I think many people are confused because we don't have - We have a decentralized system here.

Every county does their own thing.

So, Charleston County may have four satellite locations and their hours are much different from Berkeley County And she's talking to my grandmother.

My grandmother can't help her.

My grandma lives in Berkeley County not Charleston County.

So, folks are just really confused as to what to do.

And to be honest, these hours to go vote are not helpful either.

Working class people are at work 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday when you can go vote in person absentee.

And the average person commutes long - a pretty decent while to get to work.

And so they can't go before work and where are you at 5 o'clock when you get off.

Even if you get off at 4, you most likely stuck in rush hour traffic.

So, it just makes it extremely hard for working class people to try to get in my opinion to even vote early.

And depending on where you are too, I think most counties have a Saturday option too.

So, to your point, I know for sure places like Richland and Charleston have Saturday opportunities to vote, particularly I think October 24th and October 31st.

So, if you are wanting to go on a Saturday to Pastor Sh'Kur's point, you can go on those days depending on where you are.

I'm curious from the lens of the work that from the lens of your experience and the work that you do, what are some of the things you're hearing from people when you're out on the trail, if you will or when you're just doing the work that you guys do over at CityBright ?Absolutely, so some of the similar questions that have been posed is you know, do I have to have an excuse when I go?

My mom went and voted this morning, which I was so excited about.

And she said you have to have a reason because apparently you know when you get there you're asked and you can say COVID-19 as your reason.

So, you still have to provide - it's not necessarily no excuse it's that COVID-19 is an all encompassing excuse.

So, some people are getting confused about that.

And then of course, you know people are asking, you know, where can I vote?

When can I vote?

You know do I have to apply to vote in person absentee?

And so it's just like some of the challenges are very confusing for people.

It's not necessarily something that everybody knows everything about.

You know I work in this field and sometimes I have to Google SCVotes.gov.

I probably google SCVotes.gov actually every day and to be honest at this point, because people ask me all the time - you know What about this?

What about this?

And I'm like "Okay, let me find it for you.

I know where to look."

I don't always on the answer.

So, it's just not always simple or plain.

I hope that we can do a better job as a state to do that.

I think it's also meaningful that we're dealing with a new voting system.

And that's producing some issues.

Online and social media, there were very upset reports that some people said Jamie Harrison was not on their ballot.

Well, it turns out it's a technical issue with the software that if you vote straight ticket, which is legal in South Carolina and then when you get to an individual candidate you hit their button, what you do is unselect them.

And so people weren't realizing that poll workers have been busily helping voters understand that if they hit one of those partisan offices after they've already voted straight ticket that they're taking somebody off, not putting them on.

But you know, there's a lot to learn about the new system and sometimes the programming isn't as user friendly as one would hope.

I'm wondering if there is like a crash course or some on boarding process that residents can take advantage of, especially since it is a new system.

It's something new that we have to get used to.

Can I jump in?

I mean, you know, it's sad.

This is America.

What I'm listening to the folks who - you know it's like a hurricane is coming.

It's like I gotta get the bread before it's all gone.

I gotta get in line before - I mean that is crazy on one level.

Things are starting to get animated.

This is America.

The idea that voting is like trying to get the last loaf of bread before the hurricane hits is distressing.

So, like on one level signature no signature wouldn't normally be that stressful of a thing for people.

It's like yeah, whatever.

So, it's my medical bill.

I signed it I didn't sign it.

They'll send me another bill.

No, this is voting.

I get one shot at it.

And this is not secure.

So, let me say, that's a problem.

The second thing I would say and I was thinking about it earlier today is like you know not everyone has got a cell phone that they can whip out.

You know, we're fortunate, we can look at SCvotes.gov.

So, what I will say is hopefully you got a phone and if you got a phone 1 866 our vote is the lawyers committee for civil rights and other nonpartisan groups.

I used to be an attorney at the lawyers committee and we a decade ago after the debacle in Florida said this is crazy.

We have got to - our government's not doing it, we as attorneys have to step forward.

And so you know I don't care what your problem is and I don't care if you are one minute from the poll.

You call 1 866 our vote an attorney will pick up that phone, hopefully sooner than later and they will look up the information you need.

Am I the right poll?

Am I at the wrong poll?

Are there is there a problem here?

It's unfortunately at least you know we do have that resource, but it's stressful for folks.

So, you know I'll say it a third time.

1 866 our vote.

We have lots of resources from different organizations to help people, but you know but you're absolutely right.

That digital divide everyone may not have access to the technology to get them there.

Are you guys hopeful that the questions and the concerns that come up in our society when it comes to voting, as we live our life, are you guys hopeful that we can make the process better?

That what's happening what we're experiencing now will help us make the process better?

I think it will.

I think the process will be improved by this experience.

And I think we also need to remember that the United States has been voting for a very long time and we've been doing it successfully.

There's a lot of nervousness, this time around because of unusual circumstances.

But, Richland mailed out my ballot, last Friday.

I got it Tuesday.

You know, there was no big delay.

Follow the instructions very carefully.

Again, people without Internet access do have a special problem.

The League of Women Voters and for anybody who really knows the League, we don't usually deal in much money, but we got a very generous anonymous donor.

And we spent it all on radio ads to help with voting in areas with poor broadband access, precisely because of this concern.

But I think we're learning a lot of things.

We're going through a lot of experiences here that we can look at in the future.

You mentioned the Post Office and using our postal system to get our ballots to return our ballots.

I want to talk now a little bit about voter suppression and fraud.

Those concerns have come up and almost plagued our news cycle.

Do you see concerns each of you?

Do you feel that there are concerns with voting by mail?

I think it's an overblown fear, really?

Concerns about voter fraud, you see these comments about well somebody could run off millions of ballots.

No, they can't.

We have very good mechanisms in place to prevent that.

To say that's even possible, you have to think that you'll be looking at a sheet of paper that says Trump or Biden at the top and that's it.

Ballots are complex and their ballots have bar codes another identifiers so that the election office knows that the ballot they're counting is the one they sent out, not one that someone manufactured after the fact.

And they're highly variable depending on your school district boundaries, your county council, your city council and so forth.

It would be quite a production to try to conduct that level of of voter fraud by mail.

I heard a reaction from you.

I just - This voting by mail is very complicated.

Despite Ms.

Lynn attests to and I just simply tell folks, just go in person.

Most people love to see you know you want to see your ballot.

Right?

You want to hit that machine.

You want to see that it got counted.

You want to get your sticker and post it on social media that you voted.

And so I just simply tell folks, just go in person.

This year I think with some of our leaders and the media, it has blown this voting by mail out of disproportion.

And people are terrified that if I vote by mail, how do I know they got it?

Will it be lost?

You know people have developed a sense of paranoia about whether they got my ballot.

Is my ballot going to be counted?

Did I sign the signature?

Did I not sign it?

So, I just think it's just best to simply go in person and I want to comment on something you said earlier about the process getting any easier.

We have been voting in America a long time.

However, this process as we look across the nation has not gotten easier.

I remember back in 2018, I called my grandmother at 6:30 and I asked her, have you voted yet?

And shockingly she said, "No.

The line was too long."

This is my 69 year old grandmother who influenced me to get involved in politics and she hadn't voted because the line was extremely too long.

So, I picked her up, took her to the polls and we finally voted at Boulder Bluff Elementary School at 7:35, Polls had already been closed, but I remember begging people just to stand in the line.

This is a consistent issue and we haven't addressed the logistics.

And when I look at states like Texas, why does Harris County a county of four million people, has one ballot drop off box and the county's larger than Rhode Island?

So, if you lack a cell phone, most likely you lack transportation.

There is no way for you to get there to drop off your ballot.

And some states have laws in place where no one can drop off your ballot for you, unless they're a close family member.

And so it's an extremely - we're making the process more complicated with these voter ID laws, scrapping voting hours, closing voting centers.

We really need to revisit the logistics of trying to ensure that we are prepared for this turn out if the people are willing to vote.

You mentioned voter ID laws.

Do you think that having that I.D.

help, suppresses the opportunity to vote for certain groups?

We're broadcasting from Columbia and of course this is a big college town.

So, I think about our students.

I also think about the state's senior citizens and minority communities.

Is this an issue for these groups and other groups of people?

I just want to say this and I'm gonna be quiet.

This morning you know I've been asking friends you know if you're on Instagram and Twitter, I'm automatically commenting your story, "Have you voted?"

And a friend, I asked her have you voted?

And she responded that she had recently moved to Berkeley County, but she hadn't changed her address, but she's registered to vote in Charleston County.

She believes, "I can't vote because my the address on my ID does not match the address of my voter registration."

And for people who move a lot, most likely low income, who've been evicted and whatnot, most likely your address will not line up with your voter identification.

And for that, this young lady felt "Well, I can't vote because" "they're going to tell me, well this doesn't match."

And I had to help her out with that and that's a concern that I really see.

And I remember having that same issue in college.

While living in Rock Hill, I registered to vote there, but my ID had Charleston County.

So this is I think that's the issue that a lot of college students and people from low income backgrounds will face.

What about our seniors?

Some people may not have ID.

A lot of people are confused.

Is it required to have an ID to vote?

Do you have to have an I.D.?

Or your voter registration card?

Do you need them both?

You can claim that you have a legitimate reason not to have a photo ID.

And if you do that at the polling place they have to give you a provisional ballot and allow you to vote.

This was the result of a court case following passage of the photo ID law.

I don't think it happens very often, but they're not really able to argue with you there.

You ask for the provisional ballot and they give it to you.

And if you do fill out a provisional ballot, you have three days into after election day to appear at a hearing and you present your ID to a judge and your ballot will be counted.

It's surprising how many people do not know that.

But if you do fill out a provisional ballot, there is a way to get that I.D.

presented so your ballot could be counted.

We are nineteen days away from our general election.

November third is the big day.

And if you've just tuned in you've missed the numbers that we shared.

But a lot of you a lot of South Carolinians have already cast their ballot by five o'clock today, there were 637 thousand total ballots cast, well issued and 388 thousand of those were returned already.

221 thousand of those were cast in person and 167 thousand of those by mail.

I want to turn now to our Assistant General Manager, Adrienne Fairwell because you are monitoring conversations online.

And people can take part in in tonight's conversation and share some of their experiences.

How can they do that?

They can certainly do that Thelisha, thank you by tuning into Facebook and putting a comment in the chat box.

And once you do that, I am able to read your comment to our distinguished panel.

And they would be happy to answer the questions.

Thank you very much.

A lot of us dwell on social media a lot.

So, we definitely want to reach out to you and we definitely want to hear your comments or your questions, tonight.

I want to talk a little bit about the comment that we hear from people, "Will my vote matter?

Will it count??

When you hear that what's your response?

Well, I mean it's going to count.

That's gonna count.

The question is and this is I think you know for particular disaffected communities, what's the effort level, you know as the pastor was talking about.

And do I believe that's going to make a difference.

Counting?

Yes.

Do I think it's going to make a difference?

No.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of communities that have been you know beat down over time.

Seems it's harder for them to vote.

Seems they get less back from government.

And you know, I wish I had a good answer that said, Yeah, you know you're going to get your sort of results.

You're not going to have long lines.

Truth is, it's a sacrifice for voters but you know it is part of good citizenship.

That's what I would come back to.

So, you know regardless of you know, whether you think your candidate's gonna win or not win, you know, it's part of participating in our democracy.

And I hope that everyone regardless of who they want to vote for goes out and votes either early or on the day.

Just to follow up, I mean, I would say because of these long lines, you know if you don't need to vote early, like make that space available for the people who do need to vote early.

And you know the rest of us will tough it out on election day as we have to do.

This is such a loaded question, but generally I hope people realize the significance of voting as a part of your unique perspective being put on a ballot.

Right.

Because we all come from different backgrounds.

We all have different perspectives.

Some of us are single issue voters.

Some of us are straight ticket voters.

We're going to be blue dog or yellow dog Democrats or whatever they call it.

We're gonna vote because we want to make sure that our voice is being heard on the ballot.

And that's the way that we see change in our community.

That's the way we see change across our country.

We have to recognize that our country is built off of you know different branches.

The legislative branch is very significant, very powerful, whether you're talking about the legislative branch in Congress or the legislative branch on city council.

And so if we are not using our voice to say I want this person on my county council.

I want this person to represent me in Congress.

I want this person represent me at the Statehouse here in South Carolina General Assembly.

If we're not doing that, we're doing a disservice, not just ourselves but to the people around us.

You know we talk about even the US Census, make sure we're you know, your senses, you need to be counted your voice needs to be counted and your vote too.

I hope that we correlate those a little bit better, so people can see that, some people lose Statehouse and County Council races by 200 votes.

If those 200 people hadn't shown up, some people would have won office and some people would have loss.

And so I think that we're getting down to this thing where people are saying, "Oh, "my vote doesn't matter" because they want people to think that their vote doesn't matter.

If we didn't have - people say this all the time, So I'm not the only person who says it.

If voting didn't matter voter suppression wouldn't exist.

So, we have to recognize, there's a reason why we have issues with voting.

Because if it were the most simple process in the world, we would have elections that would run smoothly our democracy look different.

However, we don't.

So, we're gonna have to be able to put people in office who are going to represent us better and do things that were holding them accountable to.

We still hear that "Will my vote count?

It doesn't" "matter.

This is just a game.

There are people in" "the back room pulling the strings, It really" "doesn't matter."

Your responses.

I think Citizenism is one of the most harmful things that happens to democracy.

If everyone in South Carolina who was eligible to vote, voted it would be all bets off for the usual predictions of how things would go.

People one by one decide my vote doesn't matter and the cumulative effect can be decisive.

But all votes do matter.

And we have to remember too, that it isn't all about one office.

People get very excited about a presidential election.

And yes that matters tremendously, but your Statehouse matters.

You know and the South Carolina House of Representatives district does not have that many voters who actually show up.

And you may in fact be the decisive vote about who is there representing you for two years in the Statehouse.

School boards matter.

All of these other local offices affect your lives every day.

And you know they affect whether the potholes are filled and whether you have the schools you want, whether you have the emergency services that you think are appropriate.

All of these things are affected by local government.

So, writing off any election is a mistake.

And every voter's voice might end up being the decisive one on one of these offices.

I do want to jump in there because I'm, for those who know me I'm a a big education advocate in this state.

And of course, the opening or closing of individual schools has dominated a huge percentage of families' lives.

And you know.

You're exactly right and we have got school boards members who represent small you know little communities and we're talking about if you know if you can get six, seven, eight hundred people to vote for you, you're on the school board.

That person is going to decide you know who's the Superintendent, you know.

How many teachers are they going to have.

You know whatever you're watching on TV, which is normally not about the school board, your vote matters for the school board this Fall, next Fall, every time that there's an election.

I find I have to frame it like that in order to convince people to vote.

You know I have to tell them, 'Listen this election will depend where Ray Ray and Tee Tee go to school next year.

You got to say it like that.

This election, you know, I'm from Charleston a city that has been largely gentrified.

And I hear people complain well what happened to the city?

We didn't elect the right person to City Council because they didn't appoint the right people to the zoning board, who re-zoned this from residential to commercial and so you have to frame it you know in a way that's personal for people.

These elections decide where your children go to school they decide where you live you know this is going to be residential or commercial.

They decide your taxes.

I mean it's extremely personal.

And my thought process has always been, every election is bigger than me.

It's not about whether my vote simply counts.

I understand that putting my vote with your vote and your vote, we can make a difference.

None of us can do it by ourselves.

And I've been telling a lot of friends don't be selfish when you go to the polls and just take yourself.

You call everybody else up and hold those friends accountable and say Hey have you voted?

This is the most important election of our lifetime and it's bigger than Mr Trump and Mr Biden.

This is about us.

And so I'm not going to allow you to sit home on your couch and neglect us.

We have to get out there because we need to make a change.

And I think when you frame it like that you know people are more likely to vote that it's not all about you.

It's about us.

You have to make a personal, walking down your street, knock on their door if you have to.

Well, we want to go know out to Adrienne.

We have conversations happening on our social media.

Absolutely so this question is for anyone on the panel.

If you decide to vote early in person instead of waiting for your mail in ballot, what do you do with your unused ballot?

You can just mark it return to sender and put it back in the mail.

Or you can take it down to Harden Street and turn it in but - or take it with you to a satellite, but if you don't have it yet, you can vote and then simply return the unopened envelope through the mail.

Okay a second question, if you turn in your ballot before the signature ruling does your ballot still count?

I think they have - they took track - I think it's two days after the witness signature and the US Supreme Court ruling had been overturned again, I think they're gonna count people without a witness signature if they returned it within those two days before they reversed the calling.

By October seventh.

Yeah.

Okay, Okay.

Thank you and how can people, if there are people out there watching on social media and they would like to ask a question or comment, again where should they go and how do they do that?

If you are watching on social media, you simply log on to Facebook and go into the chat box and put your question in, I will then read your question hopefully verbatim.

And we'll share it with this distinguished panel.

You can find us on Facebook at South Carolina ETV.

You know here at ETV and at South Carolina Public Radio, we recently produced a series recognizing and celebrating the women and their allies, and getting the passage of the nineteenth amendment.

It was our Sisterhood series.

And for several weeks, we talked about so many women for over a century who've worked really, really hard.

And then again we just look at our history of voting rights and fighting for equality and fighting for the right to vote, I know South Carolina is not unique but I am a little biased.

But we have a lot of history here in South Carolina that helped get us to where we are.

As we talk today about where we are and how to vote in this pandemic, what can we do?

What can younger - everyone from the youngest of us to the oldest of us do to change to make our future a little bit better, streamline the process?

What are some from the lens of each of your experiences, what are some specific things that you think need to happen to move us along to get to this hopefully perfect place?

(chuckling) Well, there's no such thing as perfect.

But I think, even going back to one of your questions earlier about the processes, there needs to be a greater push for like the professor was saying about education.

Why are we not teaching about it in our civics classes in high schools or even at our churches or wherever we are that you have to go for public schools for that matter or private schools, whatever it is, why are we not teaching civics.

Why are we not teaching the importance of voting.

Why are we not teaching what Pastor said about who is rezoning my city.

We need to be talking about that more.

I was able to work for the City of Columbia for a long time so I have a greater understanding that I think normal people do about you know how things work in the city.

That should not be my a singular experience, we should be talking about these things.

We should be talking about why is it important to not even just elected officials but appointed positions across the state.

You know there's a lot of appointed positions that have a lot of power too, even in the state legislators.

Sometimes the state the Statehouse legislators, the Senate and the House, they appoint people to be on commissions like the South Carolina Public Service Commission that controls how much a utility bill is.

Those are, That's not you directly appointing, you directly voting for people on the South Carolina Public Service Commission but you voting for a Senator or representative to vote for who is going to be representing you on the Public Service Commission.

So we have to be thing about all these things and learning about all these things because there's so much information.

There so many processes.

There's so many elected and appointed positions but we need to be talking about them more so people understand the consequences of elections.

And saying like we can't just say like my vote doesn't matter because then you're going to complain about your utility bill and then mad that you didn't - it's like we need to be talking about these things more and educating people so they understand why their vote matters.

So, you think more education and teaching how our society how our system works.

Absolutely.

Systems are confusing on purpose.

The Public Service Commission was an excellent example to use because of course with the VC Summer situation, there was suddenly a lot of attention and people who had never even known that the PSC was, suddenly had a better understanding of it.

And they communicated to their legislators that they were not happy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here was this mess.

Here were these people who are supposed to be overseeing it.

There was also the problem of the Base Load Review Act, which tied their hands to a degree.

But because the voices of citizens were very loudly heard at the Statehouse, we now have a totally new set of public service commissioners.

We have a new mission statement for the Office of Regulatory Staff, which does a great deal of the work on utilities.

And we have a more of citizen focused process of managing this utility monopolies that affect everybody because it's whether your lights are on and what your bill is.

And I just heard of the Public Service Commission when they did the elections.

One thing I was disappointed in is the lack of diversity.

There was a lack of diversity for a state that has what 30%, 35% minorities.

there wasn't much diversity to the new elected commissioners.

One.

There was one?

One African American.

One African American in a state that's 30%, 35% minorities.

I just I was hoping that it would be more diverse.

Getting to the question you asked, how can we get to that place?

You know I've been privileged the past couple of years to have served as the first African American pastor of three predominantly white churches.

Right now in America, I believe we're just in a season of toxicness.

People can't speak to one another.

You can't share your feelings.

People are explosive.

I mean even asking somebody to wear a mask could end in a fatal situation.

I truly do feel and I've seen this as a pastor in my context, we need to work on building relationships.

There is a lack of civility and decency.

We don't treat one another as human beings.

When someone disagrees with you politically, we automatically demonize them.

You know, it's gotten completely out of hand and as a pastor, it breaks my heart when I see some of my old parishioners you know the things they've shared on Facebook.

It's just not civil and decent.

And we've gotten to a place where we have stereotyped this political party as one thing, this political party as one thing and anybody who votes for this person is a bad person.

I really do think we need to build relationships.

And I've seen that in my own context.

Being the pastor of, you know, white folks who grew up in segregation, didn't have any white friends.

I mean black friends or weren't employed with black people, didn't go to church with black people.

And I've been honored to walk in some doors and thresholds of homes, have been told I'm the first African American who's ever been in my house.

In building relationships, and I want to say this, I had one particular man I was very close with in my previous appointment.

I remember when I went to first meet him he said I am so overjoyed.

I never thought I would have the day when I had a Colored pastor.

Now, I remember he was a 90 something year old man.

He was a man of his time.

Yeah.

But it's never to old to be educated.

So, I educated him, in love and that was just a lesson learned and we went on to build a marvelous relationship.

And I really think in this season if we want to get to that place, no, we won't be perfect but we can make America great again by treating one another with civility, respect and just like humans and being able to talk and have dialogue.

Just not be so mean to one another.

Okay, I wanna jump in I mean because and this will take us you know back to the schools again.

You know two people raised it.

And ultimately, it has always been the case, right.

That the one place that we have met on equal terms or somewhere close to equal terms has been in the school house regardless of your religion, your race.

And look we've got assorted history with schools.

But it has always been our schools that push us forward to try to have a more civic, a more integrated experience.

And so you know part of getting to where we need to be is not fleeing to our different corners of segregated schools or segregated neighborhoods, but it's to use our schools as a place to rebuild that civic relationship and to be good role models for our children.

I think our teachers are good role models for our children.

And you know just to go back to, I was hoping that my son would se something about civics in the presidential debate and you know we were about an hour into it and I just said you know son we're going to bed.

And I said because these are not how adults act.

I'm not calling names.

I said this is not how adults - and the thing that bothered me about it was that he thought it was entertaining in some respect.

And I think that is the wrong thing.

Right.

Like, so to go back with the pastor said, like what what is our sort of civics and sort of meeting in a common place.

And so you know we gotta start young, because sometimes we are too old to learn lessons, you know.

Some lessons have to be learned, but sometimes we build up our biases and they're very hard to break once we become adults.

I want to thank you guys for sharing that because you are from different - you all work in different areas and arenas And it's good to hear what's happening around us and among us, including on social media.

Absolutely.

At the top of the hour, Thelisha shared with you that we do have a community of viewers on Webex.

And I believe we have a comment coming in from Jennifer on Webex.

And Jennifer I will give you the floor to ask your question.

Thank you.

It's really kind of more of a comment I wanted to start out saying thank you so much to all of you for hosting this wonderful panel tonight and providing this information for South Carolina voters.

You know this is not my line of work.

I'm not in politics.

I'm not in voting rights and advocacy.

I'm a music teacher.

But I am really passionate about this subject and the need for us to make voting as universal and simple as it can be just as the panelists have said.

I've been doing my own research you know listening to podcasts, reading about all the legislation and also the litigation and spreading the word myself on social media as much as I can.

As being a teacher, I have former students who were old enough now to vote.

So, I've got you know a thousand friends on Facebook and they're probably all tired of me, but every day I'm posting here's your voting tip for the day, the things that I'm learning.

And I've got more now from what I've heard tonight.

So, I appreciate that.

I agree that there is a lot of confusion.

You know I'm hearing from students and people that I haven't heard from in years who see my post and then they message and say, can you help me because I want to do absentee, but I don't know how.

And it's frustrating to see the level of confusion but I'm glad that what you guys are doing tonight I think is going to help clear some of that up for people.

So, thank you.

And when the pastor spoke earlier, you made my Facebook chat blow up.

So, thank you for that.

They woke up out there.

I think I invited Jennifer.

You did.

I haven't met her.

We're Twitter friends and and I wanted to make sure the people I invited were diverse.

And I was like come on I'm going to invite Jennifer.

Yeah thank you for that.

So, we have some more Facebook questions.

One is coming in and that I do specifically want to get into.

What is the process for South Carolina voters with disabilities who would like to vote on election day?

Curbside.

Well, okay.

First you have the option of drive up voting.

And they will bring the equipment out to you.

So you can vote from your car.

And there are different sorts of disabilities of course.

And some people don't have a mobility problem but they may have other issues.

They may have severe vision limitation.

The equipment that is used, the new systems express vote, is set up so the poll workers should be able to help you use that system to deal with whatever your disability issues are and to allow you to still have your vote counted and heard and to do so with a degree of privacy.

Thank you for that.

Let me ask this.

I don't know much about curbside voting.

I just heard of it because I had a member do it the other day.

Every precinct on election day has this option, right?

Yes.

Every precinct.

So, let me ask you this.

If I am - if I have a mobility problem how do I get notify them that I'm outside to come to the curb?

Do I need a call beforehand?

Do I need to send someone in?

I think that may vary.

You know, that's an interesting question, it is.

Let mean just say though you know if you're in - I was helping a friend run for school board.

I was out at the polls back in 2016.

And one of the most rewarding experiences I had that year was to see an elderly person drive up, had this problem and I just said, "Well, let me just go in" "there and ask them."

Because it is America.

You can walk in there and look.

And they're in there and you say, "Hey, there's somebody out here."

So, if you see someone who is disabled or someone needs to get in, you can walk to the front of the line and say, "There's someone out here who needs help" and they'll come out there and help.

Once again, just being a nice kind person.

I think there's something else I need to throw in here.

There was a problem that came up in the primary that was unfortunate.

What happens in many polling places is that they will clearly mark where you should park if you want assistance.

And people didn't want to stand in line and had no disability at all.

And got themselves into that line.

And that's not a kind thing to do.

That line is for people who really don't have another option to exercise their right to vote.

Just a couple more questions.

How can people find out about volunteer opportunities that exist for polling support or other ways to support voting efforts?

I know Lauren you were often times talking about voting efforts and ways to support.

I'm gonna toss that one to you.

Yeah, so you can always apply to be a poll worker.

And typically it's a paid position too.

So, you're not there all day for free.

That's always a good opportunity but coming back to the problems is you know places like Richland County.

They have people applying to be poll workers and they don't get responses, so it makes it a little tricky to get more people to be a poll worker but we'll pray for Richland County.

But you know you can do that.

You can also you know volunteer like the professor was saying and help out with border protection, you know depending on where you can go I know South Carolina Democratic Party has a voter protection unit to help out with if there's any issues at the polls.

You don't have to be trained to do that but you can volunteer to be a poll watcher and volunteer through that.

I'm sure they have it for different parties too.

I know for sure that SCDP has one.

Thank you for that.

And I think we might have time for one more question.

Do I need to request a ballot before going to vote early in person or do I just arrive with my I.D?

Just show up just as you would on election day.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Those are some really good questions, very good questions.

I want to thank you guys for that as well.

And I love what you the two of you said, just about being kind and being nice.

I think we need more of that.

Definitely, need more of that.

But I also love what Jennifer who joined us via Webex, what she said and I definitely see her as a music teacher.

Music is like a universal language and if we could just be a little bit nicer, maybe we can kind of mimic the effects of what music has or does for us in our lives.

Any final thoughts?

Very, very quickly because we're about to wrap up.

What has not been said tonight that your neighbors, your family members need to know walking into or going into this election?

Very quickly.

Very quickly that it's both your right and your responsibility to vote.

You mentioned earlier, there's a long history behind this.

People suffered a great deal for the right to vote and for women, for minorities, for all the folks who just haven't had that right since day one under our Constitution.

You know, they did it for a reason because it's how you can affect what, very directly affect your life.

So it's a big mistake to let that opportunity and that responsibility go.

Yeah.

I just simply wanna reiterate once again it's not all about you.

This is about us and we need your participation.

We are better together.

And every voice needs to be heard.

Every voice is valued.

And we just need to remember that.

It's all - it's about us.

and once again we need to be kind to one another.

I just want to reiterate how important certain voter demographic blocks are.

And I think that the people who have been suppressed historically are actually the people who are can make up the biggest differences in this year's election, black voters, women voters and young voters.

Obviously we've had issues you know getting the right to vote for black voters.

Getting the right to vote for women voters, lowering the age of voting to eighteen over in several decades ago.

If people in South Carolina realize how important their vote was particularly just as a voter block, I think they would show up in greater numbers.

You know more than half of the voters in the 2020 primary and the 2018 mid term election were women.

A vast majority of you know Democratic voters in South Carolina are black.

So, if we can show up in numbers - young people you know their a third of the 18 to 40 year olds are a third of the electorate here in South Carolina.

We can show up and make sure that people know that hey, like tell your friends, everyone.

Invite people to come vote with you.

Make it a party thing.

Make it a social thing for that matter.

We don't know anywhere to go with COVID anyway.

So, make it a social thing where you go and you vote together.

If that's where you want to see your friends because you know how important it is, let's do it together and let's make sure we understand that our vote is so important.

Professor?

I would just add to exactly what she said.

But just to say that a lot of these groups have been taken for granted.

Folks expect them not to vote or the turnout's gonna be low or the margin is insufficiently bigger, they don't have to worry about these groups.

You matter.

You know show up and vote.

Don't let people take you for granted.

If you stay home you're letting other people take you for granted.

Thank you guys very, very much for being here.

We appreciate your time on this evening.

Also Adrienne, thank you and thank the people that you have been mingling and chatting with, as well.

We have folks on Facebook and also on Webex.

We want to thank you guys for being a part of this conversation.

For more coverage on the upcoming election, we want you to stay tuned to South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

And make sure you join us on election night.

We will bring you live results We'll bring results live as they happen around the state.

And for the rest of us here at South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, I'm Thelisha Eaddy.

We thank you very, very much for tuning in and do not forget to vote.

Good night.

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