COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina House Tuesday amended an elections-related bill it passed last year to add a series of controversial election security measures opposed by Democrats, who said the changes on short notice took them by surprise.
The amendment, introduced by House Majority Whip Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, and adopted 75-39 largely along party lines, changed portions of a bill that firmed up the oversight and authority of South Carolina's State Election Commission to add a prohibition on ballot drop boxes and expand the array of election audits the state can perform, among other things.
Especially frustrating to Democrats, the vote came a day ahead of a separate hearing on a proposal sponsored by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, that would add two weeks of early voting, require certain forms of identification to vote absentee and eliminate certain excuses to vote absentee.
Changes to election law, which have been made in states across the country, were in large part sparked by the 2020 election, the legislative measures that followed because of COVID-19 health concerns and unfounded voter fraud allegations made by the former president.
The bill adopted Tuesday, which had been sitting in the House since it was amended late last session by the Senate, now returns to the upper chamber, which must decide whether to accept the House change or to convene a small panel of House members and senators and hash out the differences.
Newton said the vast majority of the House's changes involved cleaning up bill language or dealt with issues lawmakers had voted on previously.
The ballot drop box ban, for example, was part of a 2020 bill that made one-time COVID-19-related voting changes ahead of that year's presidential election.
The provision dealing with election auditing, which Newton said already is required by law, is something the State Election Commission requested to enhance its auditing abilities, he said. It would allow the State Election Commission to perform risk-limiting and hand-count audits, and use third-party vendors that specialize in election auditing and ballot reconciliation to verify results.
Newton's amendment also introduces a reporting requirement for election workers who observe anything they think might violate the law, introduces filing fees for third-party political candidates and permits political parties to charge prospective candidates up to $100 in certification fees
The House amendment also strips from the bill a Senate addition that granted the upper chamber a say in the governor's appointees to the State Election Commission and its executive director.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said Tuesday he wasn't worried about the House gutting the Senate version, vowing to add measures, such as Senate nomination, back in.
"We're not asking for anything crazy, we're not asking for anything new. This is a Madisonian idea," Massey said. "This has been around for a long time. We just wanted there to be some oversight through the confirmation process of the commissioners and the executive director, which is what we have for other (agencies)."
House Assistant Minority Leader Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, complained Tuesday that the amendment, which caught Democrats by surprise, was brought to the floor without any prior discussion in committee and had not been subject to a fiscal impact analysis.
"We have the committee process to let people put their eyes on it," Ott said. "This isn't something that has minor ramifications."
He called the amendment politically driven and questioned why in South Carolina, where Republicans control every statewide elected office and have sizable majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature, were such election security measures necessary.
"I get that nationwide there are a lot of people who are trying to throw into question the integrity of our elections," Ott said. "What I have a hard time understanding is why is it happening here in South Carolina with the majority party."
Newton said he wasn't surprised Democrats opposed the amendment because they also opposed the original bill, but said some of its provisions, including the addition of candidate filing and certification fees, actually passed the House previously with bipartisan support.
He dismissed Ott's criticism that the amendment would have major implications for voting in South Carolina, saying it made mostly small changes to the system.
"This bill doesn't address our process of voting really in any way," Newton said.
A separate bill, scheduled for debate by a House panel Wednesday, would make far more substantial changes to the voting process in South Carolina, he said.
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(Reporter Joseph Bustos and Senior Editor Maayan Schechter contributed to this article.)
