Early voting for SC’s general election starts Monday. What you need to know

South Carolina’s two-week early voting period kicks off Monday ahead of the Nov. 8 statewide general election.

During early voting, which was enshrined in law earlier this year, any registered voter who presents a valid photo ID can cast a ballot at an early voting center in their county just like they would at their polling place on Election Day.

Early voting centers will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday between Oct. 24 and Nov. 5. Early voting is not offered on Sundays.

All 46 counties have at least one early voting site and most have between two and seven centers where residents can vote early without an excuse. Voters can find a full list of sites in their county at SCVotes.gov or by contacting their county voter registration office.

It should be significantly more convenient to vote early in the general election than it was during the June primaries, which were held just a few weeks after South Carolina’s early voting law was enacted.

This time around, there will be roughly 33% more early voting sites statewide, three more days of early voting and longer hours at all early voting sites than there were back in June.

Voters also will have had more time to educate themselves about the early voting process, and elections officials will have had more time to promote it.

As a result, state elections officials are anticipating a higher percentage of people will vote early in November than did in June, when about 18% of the 565,538 ballots cast were cast before the election.

“We were pleased with the turnout in the primary,” said Chris Whitmire, deputy executive director of the State Election Commission. “But now months later and with more publicity of early voting, naturally, more people finding out about it, hearing from their friends and neighbors, that would increase the numbers.”

Whitmire said based on what he’s heard from elections officials in states with longer histories of early voting, about half of all votes in South Carolina may eventually be cast before Election Day.

It remains to be seen whether such a shift in voter behavior happens quickly or over the course of several election cycles, but if it does, it won’t be the first time a majority of South Carolina voters will have cast ballots before an election.

Nearly 53% of ballots were cast early in the 2020 general election, when no-excuse absentee voting was first permitted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Friday, nearly 3.4 million South Carolinians had registered to vote, or roughly 83% of the voting age population, according to state elections data. The state has added 61,168 registered voters in the four months since the primary, but overall is down 134,452 registered voters since the 2020 general election, according to voter registration data.

WHAT TO KNOW: ABSENTEE VOTING

Voters who either by preference or necessity choose to mail in their ballots may also do so prior to Election Day.

Absentee by-mail voting will work mostly like it always has, but with more checks and balances that could complicate the process for some voters.

There are also a couple slight changes to the witness signature requirement for absentee voters that will be in effect for the general election that weren’t in place during the primary.

Absentee voters will, for the first time, be required to ensure the person who witnesses their ballot is at least 18 years old and has printed their name, in addition to signing it and providing their address. A notary is not necessary.

The most important thing to know about absentee by-mail voting is that only qualified voters are eligible for it.

Qualified voters include:

▪ People with physical disabilities

▪ People age 65 or older

▪ Members of the Armed Forces and Merchant Marines of the United States, their spouses, and dependents residing with them

▪ People admitted to hospitals as emergency patients on the day of an election or within a four-day period before the election

▪ People unable to vote in person on any day of the early-voting period or on Election Day because of employment obligations; attending to sick or physically disabled people; confinement to a jail or pretrial facility pending disposition of arrest or trial; or absence from their county for any reason.

Voters must request and return an application for an absentee ballot before they’re sent a ballot in the mail. Absentee ballot requests must be made by phone, by mail or in person at a voter registration office. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 28 at 5 p.m.

Upon requesting and receiving an absentee ballot, voters must fill it out and return it by mail or in person no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Voters who opt to mail back their ballot should do so at least a week before Election Day to allow for timely delivery. Mailed absentee ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day will not be counted, regardless of when they were postmarked.

Voters returning absentee ballots in person must present a valid photo ID.

For more information on voting early or absentee in the general election, review the “Voter FAQ” on the State Election Commission’s website.