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Web posted Tuesday,
November 2, 2004
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Michael Wright
II of Ridgeland casts his absentee ballot on
Monday for today's general election at the
Jasper County Voter Registration office. He's
one of nearly 890 voters who registered to vote
absentee as of Monday.
Mark Kreuzwieser/Carolina
Morning News
| Jasper
officials keeping fingers crossed
RIDGELAND: Workers get last-minute
training on electronic voting machines.
Mark Kreuzwieser
Carolina Morning News
With a
record turnout predicted for today's election,
Jasper County officials are hoping to avoid a
repeat of the problems that plagued the June
primary.
Nearly 890 people had registered
by Monday to vote with absentee ballots, Jasper
Board of Elections Chairman Donald Sheftall
said.
Officials with the county's
electronic voting machine company, MicroVote, were
on hand for last-minute training.
Jasper
has about 90 people working at the county's 15
polling places, including the voter registration
office's absentee voting precinct.
"We hope
to be finished (counting ballots) by 10 p.m.,"
Sheftall said. "Maybe earlier, maybe later. But
everything's going smoothly today," he said
Monday.
"MicroVote is here as we speak,
training poll workers on the
machines."
Jasper officials typically don't
finish counting votes until late in the evening or
even in early morning hours the next
day.
In June's primary election, the county
had trouble with the electronic machines, which
will be replaced in 2005 by another electronic
balloting machine that the state wants all
counties to begin using
eventually.
Problems in the primary,
including counting hundreds of votes that weren't
cast, were blamed on poll workers' errors and not
the machines, officials have said.
Election
board members scampered all over the county during
the primary to help election workers operate
voting machines. Commissioners and voters reported
that many machines would not operate initially,
and a number of voters said they were asked to use
paper ballots.
One voter said he went to
vote early and was told the voting machines were
not working yet. He decided to come back later
instead of using a paper ballot, and when he
returned hours later the machines were still
inoperable.
There were also questions about
absentee ballots - 280 absentee ballots were
thrown out because they did not include a form
that authorizes a person to handle an absentee
ballot application for a voter.
Eventually,
only 145 absentee ballots were counted in the
primary.
Today's election and tonight's
ballot tabulations will be supervised by a
revamped Jasper County Board of Elections/Voter
Registration. Gov. Mark Sanford has appointed five
new members to the nine-member panel. Two other
appointees declined to accept their
nominations.
New members Jimmy Daley,
Eugene Hicks, Lillian King, Jimmy Rhodes and Carl
Tyler join incumbents Sheftall and Vice Chair Jake
Rawl. Temporarily reinstated board member Barbara
Pinckney submitted her resignation to the governor
on Thursday.
Some 4,853 Jasper County
residents voted in the June primary, less than 50
percent of the registered voters, which at most
recent count stood at 11,378.
Only two
political offices are contested today in Jasper
County: Jasper County Board of Education District
6 and District 8.
District 6 incumbent
Andrea W. Smallwood is challenged by Mike Hubbard,
and District 8 incumbent Darlene T. Burroughs is
challenged by Mary Gallagher. School Board
elections are nonpartisan.
Here are the
other Jasper County uncontested
elections:
* Board of Education, District
2, incumbent Kathleen Snooks.
* Board of
Education, District 4, incumbent Randy
Horton.
* S.C. Senate District 45,
incumbent Sen. Clementa Pinckney.
* S.C.
House of Representatives District 122, incumbent
Rep. R. Thayer Rivers Jr.
* County Council,
Hardeeville district, Leroy Blackshear.
*
County Council, Pocotaligo district, Fred
Tuten.
* County Council, at-large district,
incumbent Gladys Jones.
* Clerk of Court,
incumbent Margaret Bostick.
* Sheriff,
incumbent Ben Riley.
* Coroner, incumbent
Martin Sauls.
Other uncontested elections
Jasper County voters will cast ballots in
are:
*Soil & Water Conservation
District, unchallenged incumbent C.M.
Dantzler.
* Circuit Solicitor District 14,
unchallenged incumbent Randolph Murdaugh
III.
Reporter Mark Kreuzwieser can be
reached at 726-6161 or
mark.kreuzwieser@lowcountrynow.com
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