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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Voters Turned Away Amongst Complete Chaos in Horry County, South
Carolina Republican Primary
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:07:16 -0500
Voters
Turned Away Amongst Complete Chaos in Horry County, South Carolina Republican
Primary
By Matthew Jarfi
Make A Difference In Horry County
Chaos would be an understatement in describing the handling
of the 2008 Republican Primary Elections in Horry County, South Carolina this
past Saturday evening. Horry County is located on the coast of South
Carolina and is home to Myrtle Beach. Murphy’s Law was in full effect for
the Horry County Elections Commission as things that could go wrong, did go
wrong.
A massive 80% of the ESS electronic voting machines were not
able to “open up” in Saturday’s primary forcing almost all
Horry County precincts to use paper ballots. When precincts opened
Saturday morning a majority of the voting machines would not work at all.
The Seawinds precinct had reported that the electronic voting machines were
down “county wide.”
Paper ballots were issued to Horry County citizens in
replacement of the voting machines. The process at the Seawinds precinct was
you would take the backup ballot to a table and fill in the bubble next to the
candidate that you wished to select in the primary. After filling in the
bubble, you would next fold your ballot back and slide it in the manila
envelope that you were given and return it to the precinct worker. On one
side of the manila envelope you would put your name, address, and your
signature. However, this was not protocol in Horry County.
Make A Difference In Horry County has confirmed that some
precincts passed out legal pads and simply asked the voters to write their
candidate’s name on the 8.5X11 paper. Early reports show that one
precinct reportedly turned away voters for seven hours consecutively while at
least one other precinct turned away voters but it is currently unknown as to
how long. While it is still very early, it is not understood as to why this
happened. If one precinct was able to simply ask voters to cast their
ballot by writing their candidate down on a piece of paper, than why would
another precinct turn away voters?
For those in Horry County who are not a fan of the
electronic voting machines, the disabled machines could have been a blessing in
disguise. The reason is simply because the South Carolina state
Constitution specifically notes that ballots are not allowed be counted in
secret. As it has been speculated that this only applies to the paper
balloting, there was no back door for Horry County as the paper ballots had to
be counted in public.
Voter Fraud?
As Make A Difference In Horry County will investigate the
plethora of information that was recorded via video and transcript over the
election day, we will also be looking into a potential situation where voter
fraud could have taken place. Our reasons for this include the fact that
technicians did repair voting machines at precincts where voting machines were
down, but it is unknown if the machines were set to a zero count. Additionally,
votes were casted on yellow legal pad paper at a particular precinct and later
counted in a room filled with stacks of the identical same yellow legal pad
paper that was openly used by county officials while those ballots were being
counted
leaving the possibility open that there could have been suspicious activities
to have taken place.
Please stay tuned for the latest information at
www.madinhorrycounty.com
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