Elections
Early voting gets underway across county
Voting for the general election has begun.
The county has received 1,998 applications for absentee ballots and mailed out 1,600 ballots. So far, 670 have been returned.
Early in-person voting begins Monday at four sites around the county. Four years ago, during the pandemic, nearly half of the votes came from absentee or early voting.
“The absentee process thus far has been a good one,” Aphra McCrea, the county’s director of Voter Registration and Elections, said last week. “We’ve seen absentee ballots go to Canada and come back, all within a week.
Mail is picked up twice a day at the elections office.
“The USPS has done a tremendous job as far as mail handling goes,” McCrea said.
More than 7,000 absentee ballots were sent to voters in the 2020 presidential election.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot application is Oct. 25. Voters can stop by, call or write to the elections office to request an application.
Absentee ballots must be received by the elections office by 7 p.m. on election day, which is Nov. 5.
Early voting this year will be Oct. 21 through Oct. 26 and Oct. 28 through Nov. 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“I think people like early voting and they are taking advantage of that,” McCrea said. “You don’t need a reason. All you do is show up.”
All registered voters can cast a ballot in one of the four early votings centers – the recreation centers in Pawleys Island, Choppee and Andrews, and the elections office in Georgetown. Voters do not have to cast a ballot at the center closest to where they live.
Those wishing to vote should bring a photo ID.
The county has new scanners on its voting machines.
McCrea said the new devices make the machines more secure and the tabulations faster.
On Election Day, there will be a sign on each machine warning voters to not proceed if they think they have the wrong ballot.
“It’s a way for us to make sure voters do their due diligence,” McCrea said.
If a voter thinks they have the wrong ballot they should speak to a poll clerk.
Once a ballot is cast the elections office will investigate, but there is nothing officials can do to change it.
To handle confusion on Election Day, the county is having precinct maps printed and hung in polling places on Nov. 5.
McCrea said if a voter arrives at the wrong precinct but believes that they are at the correct one, they can look for their address on the map.
In the past poll workers would call the elections office. That option will still be available.
The problem is most severe in Andrews and Sampit where some streets are split between precincts.
“A lot of our poll workers are really excited about this,” McCrea said. “On election day they call up and someone’s upset about receiving the incorrect ballot and the poll clerk has no way of showing them where they live without calling us.”
There are 47,856 registered voters in Georgetown County, 442 more than in 2020.
During the 2020 presidential election, the turnout in the county was 77.9 percent. Nearly half of the ballots were cast by mail or in-person absentee.
McCrea expects the reporting on election night 2024 to be “much different” than in past years.
“We’re going to be extremely busy,” she said. “We will be nervous and tired because it is a very long day going into what can be an even longer night.”
The deadline to register to vote, which was extended by the state for a week because of the impacts of Hurricane Helene, was Monday. The county received 169 registrations during that period.
To check your registration, find your polling place or see a sample ballot, go to scvotes.org.
