A three-person panel determined Monday that a question on the November ballots asking if South Carolina’s constitution should stipulate that “only a” citizen can vote does not require further explanation.
The Constitutional Ballot Commission unanimously decided that voters could understand the questions without the need for additional language.
The Legislature gave its approval earlier this year to include the question on the ballot. The question seeks to alter the state constitution’s guaranteed right to vote from “every” to “only a” citizen who is at least 18 years old and fully registered.
Proponents claim it will prevent any future court rule that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections in South Carolina. Democrats said it was utterly unneeded, yet most people voted for it nonetheless.
“Our job is to come up with an explanation that is easier for the average citizen to follow, so they don’t have to get a law degree to understand it,” Attorney General Alan Wilson told reporters following the vote. “We’re merely altering two terms, so we didn’t consider it necessary.”
The attorney general, the election commission director, and the legislative council director make up the commission that analyzes any proposed constitutional modifications.
Republicans call for 1-word voting change to SC constitution. Democrats say there’s ‘zero’ need.
There will only be one question for South Carolina voters.
In South Carolina, only the Legislature can place a question on the general election ballot. Any resolution to do so must receive supermajority approval in both chambers. Throughout the previous session, the Republican-dominated Legislature repeatedly rejected all attempts to place an abortion question on the ballot.
However, the citizenship question easily passed the two-thirds threshold, with a 40-3 majority in the Senate in April and overwhelming acceptance in the House in May.
Some cities and towns across the country have permitted non-citizens to vote in local elections, while proponents noted that none in South Carolina are proposing to do so.
“This is just an additional safeguard to ensure that somebody might not make the argument that non-citizens could vote in a South Carolina municipal election,” Wilson told reporters Monday.
Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, described the proposed amendment as a “belt and suspenders approach” to election security.
Campsen cited San Francisco, where a local ordinance permitted non-citizen parents to vote in school board elections. The California Court of Appeals upheld the legislation, citing comparable language in the state’s constitution concerning “every” citizen’s right to vote.
Although Campsen agreed that the issue is unlikely to arise in South Carolina in the near future, he stated that the amendment would prevent a situation like this from occurring in the Palmetto State.
The question, which will appear on the ballot, is:
Must Section 4 of Article II of this State’s Constitution, pertaining to voter qualifications, be altered so that only a citizen of the United States and of this State over the age of eighteen who is properly registered is eligible to vote as provided by law?
