Last Monday, the Aiken County Election Board closed the three satellite voting locations in the county. An 11th hour protest from a South Carolina Republican who is serving as counsel and parliamentarian to the party, shut down the satellite absentee voting locations on Monday.
Last night the Aiken County Election Board held an emergency meeting to reopen the satellite offices. According the the South Carolina Attorney General's office, satellite absentee voting is allowed. http://chronicle.augusta.com/...
In a unanimous vote Friday, the Aiken County Registration and Elections Commission has agreed to open three satellite absentee precinct sites, beginning Sunday.
The commissioners had suspended their planned use of the satellites in Aiken, North Augusta and Wagener pending an opinion of the S.C. Attorney General's office over the legality of the satellite locations.
That opinion, completed Thursday, appeared to support the contention of the Aiken Branch NAACP that such satellite sites are lawful and that failure to open them had the potential to disenfranchise prospective. However, the commissioners' action to reverse the week-long suspension rested more on procedural concerns raised by Aiken County attorney Jim Holly. He recommended that the suspension be lifted at an emergency meeting of the commissioners Friday night.
The Elections Board originally had approved the satellite facilities following the pre-clearance of the U.S. Justice Department in conjunction with U.S. Voting Rights Act. The board members could not have gotten the federal agency to preclear any changes to that decision prior to the election, Holly said.
It's amusing to see the difference in the opinions of the reopening of the satellite offices:
The winners are the voters of Aiken County, said Aiken County Democratic party Chairman John Brecht, and NAACP official Kim Anderson Ray agreed.
"We want to make voting as accessible as we can for those with transportation issues and those who are elderly or handicapped," she said.
Diane Giddings, the Aiken County Republican party executive committeeman, said a voters' guide distributed by the election office clearly states that it's unlawful to distribute or display campaign literature near a voting polling place. The Kalmia Plaza in Aiken and the Nancy Carson Library in North Augusta are public places, she said. Bedenbaugh said those sites will be monitored like any regular voting precinct.
"It's illegal to have any campaign literature within 200 feet of a polling place," Giddings said. "They absolutely cannot protect that. The integrity of the polls is going to be broken."
Why in the hell are republicans worried about campaign literature at the sites??? The satellite offices will be treated the same as the regular polling locations. Just have to bitch about something I guess.
Full article:http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/1018-satellite-offices