The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Jan. 23, 2024
Today’s Script
(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
We’re in the Carolinas today, where South Carolina’s election director appealed for higher pay to replace poll workers driven off by threats and low wages, and North Carolina democracy groups want clarity of new restrictive voter ID rules.
States Newsroom reports the director of the South Carolina Election Commission asked for $4 Million dollars from a South Carolina House budget committee to raise stipends for county poll workers, and help retain state staff. Director Howard Knapp said turnover was the highest that he’d seen in his 12 years in state government, and blamed it on a combination of low pay and sustained personal threats.
Knapp also asked for an additional $11.5 Million to cover an expected doubling of election costs due to expected higher turnout and the addition of early voting.
In North Carolina, democracy groups asked the state election board to clarify rules for the state’s new voter ID law. Three counties were cited by the groups as having violated state guidance in 2023 and subjectively rejecting voters based on their reason for a lack of ID.
North Carolina Newsline reports that voters were given an opportunity to fill out an exception form and provisional ballot, but that county officials in Guilford, Mecklenburg, and Brunswick counties second-guessed some voters’ exception reasons, including that of a wheelchair-bound voter with Huntington’s disease.
We have links to more details at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. I’m Brian Beihl.
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
PBS Newshour – Election workers are being bombarded with death threats, the U.S. government says
NPR – In the face of threats, election workers say they feel unsafe doing their jobs
States Newsroom – Threats, low pay causing high turnover in SC election offices. Legislators asked to up stipends.
North Carolina Newsline – Voting rights groups find new photo ID law caused trouble for voters and county officials
North Carolina Newsline – NC voting rights groups ask for clearer voter ID rules for county boards ahead of the first batches of absentee ballots going out Friday
Southern Coalition for Social Justice – Comment on Proposed Permanent Rules on Voter Photo Identification
Groups Taking Action:
Election Official Legal Defense Network, Brennan Center, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Power the Polls, Fair Elections Center
Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Common Cause North Carolina, and Democracy North Carolina
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