By Rebecca Leber/Think Progress
South Carolina never found a single dead voter in recent elections. At least, that is thefinal word from the State Election Commission investigation into whether 900 people voted using a dead person’s name, according to the Columbia Free Times.
The report found that whatever issues existed were usually due to human error, like a clerical mistake or scanning problem, and not because anyone intentionally impersonated a deceased person. For example, hundreds of errors were due to mistakes like confusing a father and son who share the same name.
When Attorney General Alan Wilson demanded the original investigation, he cited “an alarming number” of cases reported by the DMV that “clearly necessitates an investigation into criminal activity.” The initial report surveyed 200 “suspicious” names and found nothing, but Wilson insisted “no one in this state should issue any kind of clean bill of health in this matter” until officials “finished with their work.” Republicans, including Wilson, held up the initial claim that the voting rolls were packed with dead voters to argue for a voter ID law. Rep. Alan Clemmons (R) wrote at one point, “It is an unspoken truth in South Carolina that election fraud exists.”
Even though South Carolina has never found any election fraud, that will not prevent state Republicans from redoubling strict voter ID efforts, invigorated by the recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. In fact, Wilson celebrated the decision, calling the Voting Rights Act an “extraordinary intrusion” and pledging to implement voter ID “without some having to ask for permission or being required to jump through the extraordinary hoops demanded by federal bureaucracy.”
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