How to increase Voter Turnout

After just 13% of registered voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s Seneca Municipal Election, the question of how to increase turnout is being raised. Oconee County Voter Registration and Elections Director Joy Scharich thinks moving elections to November might get more people to the polls. “There has been a push statewide, all counties are moving in that direction. Several years ago, our board accepted the authority over all the municipal elections, except for the Town of Salem. So, we’ve had that option to change the date, but would never do that without the discussion and approval of each city’s city council and mayor. So, if that is an option that we could work towards, I think that is a big step towards increasing voter participation. It would be in the odd years, so it is not confused with the General Election or any primaries or anything like that and we could really push hard that this is voting day and do it countywide. It would also decrease the cost on the municipalities who are paying poll workers for each individual election and it would be one Super Tuesday and use the same poll workers to really drive down some of the cost that is a burden now that the law says that you have to have an election whether you have more than the number running, you have to hold it anyway. So, this would be a good counter action to that to keep the cost down.” Scharich says the next step to moving all elections to November would be to meet with city leaders. “We can approach the city or they can approach us. We already have Walhalla, Westminster and the Town of Salem on odd years in November. So, it would just be West Union and Seneca that we would need to address that with, but I think our board would be more than willing to work towards that. I think we could work together as cities and the county to get some turnout.” Before the next election, voters are encouraged to check their voting status online at www.scvotes.org to make sure everything is accurate and up to date.