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Voters wait in line at the Richland County early voting location at 2020 Hampton Street. Election directors said they kept early voting operations running smooth despite last minute changes in election law in South Carolina. Tyler Fedor/The Post and Courier 

COLUMBIA — Under new rules for early voting, more South Carolinians have cast ballots ahead of primary day compared to 2018, the last time June elections decided Democrat and Republican nominees for statewide offices.

Statewide, nearly 92,000 people had voted as of June 9, with one day left in the early-voting span. That's already a hike of almost 60 percent compared to total early votes in the 2018 primaries, at 58,000, according to the South Carolina Elections Commission. A final tally for this year's early voting will be released June 13.

Richland County alone saw a jump of over 50 percent, with nearly 7,900 people voting early compared to four years ago. Richland had five in-person voting spots, tying with Florence County for the most locations.

That's a stark contrast to Lexington County, where the numbers were not much different. By June 9, about 2,800 people had voted early, just a couple dozen more than four years earlier. As in 28 other counties, Lexington had only one in-person early voting location this year.

A new law passed last month allowed for a two-week period of true early voting in South Carolina, ending the need for voters to choose from a list of excusable reasons for why they couldn't vote at their precinct on election day.

For the June 14 primaries, the first election under the new law, early voting ended at 5 p.m. June 10. 

The new law allows for counties to have up to seven locations for early voting, but the timing of the law's passage caused election officials to scramble to comply. They expect to open more locations in November.

Absentee voting by mail is still an option with a few additional rules, but only for those who can't show up in person. The allowed list includes people with disabilities, those 65 and older, military personnel and people gone for the entire voting span, for whatever reason.

The law newly limits the number of mailed absentee ballots someone can return in person to their county office. Voters can hand-deliver their own paper ballot, plus five others, or simply return it by mail.

The new law also lets election officials open up the outer envelopes of absentee ballots a day early in order to get a head start on processing mailed-in or hand-delivered paper ballots. It also requires post-election audits in order to make sure someone's intended vote matches what the machine spits out. 

During prior elections, Alexandria Stephens, the Richland County director of elections, said they had one more polling location in the North Springs community but were unable to use it for the primaries. 

Stephens said the rise in early voters could be attributed to people, specifically younger voters, becoming more informed of what was happening in politics and government. 

"There are all these different outlets and platforms to get that information out there and there's something to target each generation," Stephens said. 

While there's not much difference in Lexington County's overall numbers, there's a huge shift in how votes are cast early, said Lenice Shoemaker, the Lexington County director of elections.

The number of people who cast paper ballots through the absentee process dropped by almost 90 percent this year compared to 2018, Shoemaker said.

The new law also changed the form used to request mail-in ballots. Because of this, the old forms were no longer accepted after May 31.

This left county election offices with three days until the forms were due, June 3, to get voters the updated form.  

“I am trying to call (voters) to send out the new applications and trying to get them to get those back to me so I can mail you those ballots," Shoemaker said. "But it's been a real quick turnaround, so people are frustrated with that."

Reach Tyler Fedor at 443-591-7516. Follow him on Twitter at @tylerrfedor. Send tips to tfedor@postandcourier.com.

Tyler Fedor covers Florence, Sumter, Clarendon and Williamsburg County and business within them. He's a graduate of the University of South Carolina and diehard Gamecock fan who loves to travel. Feel free to let him know of the good places to eat around the Pee Dee. 

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