The bad news: There still aren't enough workers to run the polls during the Feb. 3 vote. Party leaders have said at least 5,000 people are needed across the state.

Reaction to the call for workers has varied, with local party officials saying they still have a long way to go.

"It's volunteers that I need," said Berkeley County Executive Committeeman Neil Diamond, who is about halfway to securing the 150 people he has to find.

Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman Mullins McLeod said he's signed up about 230 volunteers to man 180 precincts. But since the polls will be open for 12 hours on a Tuesday workday, those 230 people will be stretched thin, prompting McLeod to open a telephone recruiting bank next week in hopes he can draft another 150 volunteers.

With the primary only five weeks away, Democratic leaders are putting a positive spin on preparations for running the party's first presidential preference vote in the South. Although they insist South Carolina will be ready, officials are declining to discuss finances or how much of the $500,000 needed to pay for the vote they've secured so far.

One positive piece of news did arrive last week. Party officials in Iowa are considering donating the computer software they'll use to tabulate the results from their Jan. 19 caucuses.

S.C. party Chairman Joe Erwin recently spent two days in Iowa on a fact-finding tour, and officials there offered to share their computer counting software. Iowa Democratic Party Caucus Director Ben Foecke said Iowa offered to help because South Carolina is new to the process, came seeking advice and isn't a threat to that state's first-in-the-nation status.

"We try to help wherever we can," he said. "It's spreading the love, you could say."

The Iowa computer program is one of several counting methods the South Carolina party is considering. It works like this: After the polls close Feb. 3, workers at the 2,009 polling precincts in South Carolina would begin hand-counting the thousands of paper ballots that are being used because the party could not afford to rent electronic machines.

Once all the local paper counts are finished, poll workers will then dial into a computerized telephone collection system that will record the votes and keep a running statewide tab for each of the nine candidates.

For example, if Wesley Clark received 10 votes in a precinct on Johns Island and Dick Gephardt received 14 votes, those numbers would be keyed into a phone dial pad (Clark 1-0; Gephardt 1-4) and then sent electronically to the party's counting headquarters. The system would be capable of handling thousands of such entries from around the state until the final totals are reached. As a backup, all the returns for the state's voting precincts would be double-checked locally and counted under the supervision of local county party leaders.

Foecke said many of the details of adapting the Iowa software to South Carolina still need to be worked out, but he said the time-saving aspect would be worth it, especially since so much national media will be watching.

Erwin said a decision on using the Iowa system could come as soon as next week. So far "it's our favorite," he said, partially because it is user-friendly, potentially cheap and will pass Justice Department voting rights scrutiny.

South Carolina and Utah are the only states that require the political parties to fund their own primaries.

Erwin said the party still plans to use sponsorships to allay some of the primary costs, although that probably will be in the form of ads and sponsorship banners around Greenville during the live televised NBC debate among the nine candidates on Jan. 29. Sponsorships won't be used to run the actual primary vote, he said.

"We've segregated the voting exercise," Erwin said. Sponsor names could be released in the coming weeks.

As far as recruiting more poll workers is concerned, in Dorchester County, party Chairman William McIntosh declined to say how many more volunteers he still needs but added he may have to throw in some perks. Those include box lunches for volunteers or throwing workers a reception after the polls close.

"You can't expect people to dedicate 12 hours a day or more without some rewards," he said.

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