Correct me if I am wrong, but SC seems to be one of the last states in the Union without any verifiable paper trail in its voting system whatsoever. So why is it granted one of the first primaries in the nation status, with such important consequences, at least as they are played up by the media? Examine the map from VerifiedVoting.org, which tracks the nation’s progress toward secure, auditable paper trail. South Carolina is a throwback to the bad old days. VVAP stands for voter verified paper trail. DRE means electronic voting machine.
VerifiedVoting.org writes:
The most important aspect of a voting system, with respect to accuracy, integrity and security, is whether or not it is independently auditable. That is, the very prerequisite to accuracy, integrity and security in today’s voting technology is that there be a voter-marked paper ballot, or at least a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT), for every vote cast. This ensures that election officials will have something they can use to confirm whether or not the electronic tallies produced by the voting system accurately reflected the intention of the voters.
Primary elections which are nailbiters such as the present one for the Democratic nomination would seem an especially bad time to have an election in a state which is categorized as “needs improvement” in a number of vote integrity areas. by the Verified Voting Foundation’s 2012 report “Counting Votes 2012.”
So what’s up with that?
The state’s electronic voting machines have been alleged to do some funny things. The conservative Ludwig Von Mises Institute in 2012 published a report citing some mighty peculiar statistical behavior in the Republican primary, when Newt Gingrich was cancelling events due to lack of interest while Ron Paul was consistently playing to enthusiastic crowds. The report “Evidence of Algorithmic Vote Flipping in GOP Primary Elections” published an analysis of Richland, South Carolina’s 32,570 votes which, the author claimed, showed unusual patterns in the case of Gingrich and Paul. Gingrich went on the become the surprise winner of the primary.
The move toward vote integrity began shortly after the Florida 2000 presidential electoral vote fiasco, which ended suddenly when the US Supreme Court essentially declared George W. Bush the winner. California started the movement, with Wired reporting in 2003:
Stanford computer science professor David Dill, who also served on Shelley's voting task force, said California's forward-thinking move should reverberate throughout the nation. "There's going to be a tidal wave emanating from California and heading east. California is historically a leader, especially when it comes to technology issues.
Although Hillary Clinton held a commanding lead in SC in the most recent polls, a DailyKos diarist and others report a recent Bernie Sanders surge. Says Jsamuel:
There has been a considerable dearth of polling in South Carolina over the past month (since Sanders began to make his move). Most of the polling in South Carolina was at the end of October and beginning of November when Clinton was riding high from the first debate and her testimony before Congress on Benghazi.
What this hurts most in the end, of course, is Democratic party unity at the end of the process. Supporters who feel cheated stay home and sulk during the general election. Perhaps it is time for SC to lose its status as an early primary until it get its voting systems up to snuff.