The New Voter ID Law: How it Affects Folly
By Susan Breslin
You’ve probably heard about the new Voter ID law (now waiting for Department of Justice clearance). But here are parts of it that may affect some people on Folly Beach more than other places. Learn about it now so you don’t lose your vote.
First, you’ll have to show a photo ID to vote – one of the following:
- a South Carolina driver’s license
- a South Carolina ID card from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
- a US military ID OR
- a US passport
The purpose is to compare your photograph and your signature, to make sure you’re not voting for someone else. That’s the only fraud that voter ID can detect.
By the end of the year, the Board of Elections will issue new photo registration cards that can also be used at the polls. They hope to get your photo from the DMV, so you’d just get the new card in the mail. If you don’t have a DMV license or ID, you’ll have to make a trip to the Board of Elections to be photographed.
Most people on Folly Beach have a South Carolina driver’s license (although it may not have the right address, and that can lead to other problems – see below!). But if you just moved here from another state, don’t expect to waltz into the DMV and walk out with a license. DMV is now part of the Homeland Security system, and getting a license can be agonizing. Just ask Folly Beach resident Christine Wilkerson – when she moved here from Texas, it took her two years and seven trips to the DMV because her name had changed with two marriages.
Start now to accumulate the documents you’ll need – a birth certificate, proof of residence, a social security card (or military ID or signed letter from the Social Security Administration), and proof of any name change. If you own a vehicle, you’ll need proof of insurance. And if you’ve never had a license, you’ll need a learner’s permit.
If your situation is complicated – for instance, if your name has changed, or you don’t have basic documents – you might want to start by calling the State DMV at (803) 896-5000. Ask for a supervisor, and write down their name.
And if all else fails, you can register to vote without a photo ID (a utility bill is enough), and you can vote absentee by mail without a photo ID, as long as you fall within one of 11 categories (some of them are: over 65, working, on vacation, disabled).
Now, for the part of the law you haven’t heard about. The legislature has tightened up the law on domicile (residence). It used to be that if someone challenged your right to vote because they said you didn’t live where your registration said you did, you might never hear about it, or at most, you had to make a trip to the Board of Elections with proof of residence. Under the new law, you’re notified if you‘re challenged, and you have to go to a formal Board of Elections hearing. If you lose at that hearing, you have to go to circuit court, and then to state Supreme Court.
Think that sounds unlikely? Within the last 10 years, the domicile of dozens of Folly Beach residents has been challenged twice – once by a citizen trying to make a point, and once by Wallace Scarborough, who was trying to throw out an Assembly election he’d lost by a couple of hundred votes.
The fact is, Folly residents are vulnerable to domicile challenges. We often move around the island, and since our PO Box and our polling place don’t change, we don’t update registration cards or other documents like licenses. But we may move from one precinct to another (the boundary on the island is East 3rd Street) and commit election fraud by voting in our old precinct.
We’re also vulnerable because many of us live in houses which are charged 6% of the appraised value on real estate taxes, instead of the 4% rate for residents. Maybe you rent your house a few weeks a year. Maybe your house is a duplex, with part of it rented. Living in a 6% house is one of the grounds in the law for challenging domicile.
Some prominent Folly Beach residents were caught in Wallace Scarborough’s net because they had their mail sent to the office so their secretaries could pay the bills. Some forwarded their mail to a vacation house.
Some of the other grounds for challenge are: the location of personal property, like cars and boats; your address for income tax purposes; the address you used to enroll your kids in school; the residence of your parents, spouse or children; the address on income taxes and legal and financial documents; and the address on club or organization memberships.
Wallace Scarborough found about 700 voters in his assembly district who had a different mailing address than the place where they lived (Scarborough was one of them). He found over 900 people who had a different address on their license, or paid personal property taxes on a boat or car or truck somewhere else. Most of those people never knew they’d been named, and the Board of Elections threw out his challenge. But the new law requires voters to be notified, and requires Boards of Elections to consider all those factors (before, it was optional).
It’s only a matter of time before another losing candidate brings a challenge like that. The legislature made it easier to do it by changing the law. Take care of business. Bring all your documents up to date (including your voter registration card). Don’t get caught at the polls, and don’t lose your vote.
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