****South Carolina Closing Poll Stations Without Notice****

[highplainsdem]

https://prospect.org/politics/south-carolina-closing-poll-stations-without-notice/

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The “First in the South” Democratic primary will not have all of its precinct voting locations open on February 29. Despite the fact that South Carolina has an open primary and any registered voter can participate, the biggest county in the state has closed one-third of its polling locations.

Greenville County closed down 52 precincts; most of those precincts will be consolidated and some will be shifted into temporary locations, but instead of 151 polling locations, Greenville County will have only 118. Across the state, 131 precinct polling places will be relocated.

Consolidating polling stations is a regular occurrence in South Carolina, and Greenville has already planned to do it for the first four elections of this year. “We did that for January 7th, for January 21st, we did it for tomorrow’s election on the 29th and for a sheriff’s election on March 10,” County Executive Conway Belangia told the Prospect. “All of those [elections] being countywide.”

This precinct consolidation for the highest-profile 2020 election in South Carolina has not been publicized, however. Instead, the new voting location for residents is updated on the South Carolina Election Commission website. “They don’t tell people what’s been closed. They’ll tell you where to go,” said Brett Bursey, executive director of the South Carolina Progressive Network. Regular registered voters are unlikely to go online to confirm their polling location before every election.

-snip-

[msongs]

1. one wonders how they are allowed to do this....year after year evidently nt

[Cha]

2. KR

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. This is disgusting and wrong. How dare they?

[napi21]

4. 118 polling places om Greenville is not bad. I lived there for 9 years. Greenville Cty. is a big

for SC but it's not THAT big that 118 polling places can't capably handle the voting.

I don't know which ones have closed. I voted in the local Walmart when I lived there.

[alittlelark]

5. ........................................

[Iliyah]

6. I think Dems know . . .

and will work in getting the votes accordingly.

I don't know the local and hope they are not making it difficult for POC voters, but hey this is SC.

[emmaverybo]

7. TY. Tried to tweet this but link won't copy. I hope campaigns will get out the word with the #

to phone to find out where one has been shuttled to.

[JudyM]

8. Hm. How convenient.

[sheshe2]

9. How can they even do this!?

[k2qb3]

10. Polling places in SC are pretty haphazard...

They seem to just be wherever somebody is willing to host one.

All four of the polling places I've used since I've been here have been in churches. One of the churches just decided not to do it anymore and another got torn down, So I voted in three different churches in one precinct.

Then we moved, and so now I vote in another church.

There's a website you can use that's really easy if you manage to miss the big signs they put up.

[frazzled]

12. We've had four different polling places where I live too

I live in the middle of Chicago, so all of the locations have been walkable (though in the local elections that occur in February, it can get a little tough). It started in a union hall, where four separate precincts voted together. Then it moved to the lobby of an apartment building that was only a block away. Then, when I guess the building didn’t want to host anymore, it moved to the top floor of a high-rise that was the furthest walk, and nobody liked going there. And finally it’s moved to—get this—a restaurant in a fitness club.

I think they have problems finding permanent polling places in this busy part of the city. In every state we’ve lived in before, it was always a church basement or a school.

I always check online before each election so that I’m sure where we’re going. They do send a post card notification each time it changes, but those things are easily lost in the mail or just not read.

[frazzled]

11. Given that there is no Republican primary

Couldn’t it be that polling places in heavily Republican areas (much of the state) would be closed or consolidated?

Just asking.

[SunSeeker]

13. K & R for exposure.

[LenaW]

14. Just out of curiosity

I checked the median age in that county compared to the rest of South Carolina.

https://datausa.io/map?enlarged=c-geomap-nJHbd&groups=0-nJHbd&measure=ZRuSS5