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As early voting opens in SC, long lines show how eager York County is to vote

The line at Baxter M. Hood Center at York Technical College in Rock Hill Monday morning. The other half of it is inside, snaked along the wall leading to the voting chamber.
Scott Morgan
/
South Carolina Public Radio
The line at Baxter M. Hood Center at York Technical College in Rock Hill Monday morning. The other half of it is inside, snaked along the wall leading to the voting chamber.

If you woke up Monday morning in York County and figured you would vote early as a way to beat the lines on Election Day, you very likely got a surprise.

“I'm not used to seeing this much of a turnout,” said Eric Goodman, a voter who cast his ballot in Fort Mill on Monday morning. “And I always like the early vote just to avoid big lines later on. Yeah, big turnout so far.”

Lines at some voting centers in the county on South Carolina’s first day of early voting got to more than 100 deep and stayed that way. At York Technical College in Rock Hill, voters queued up starting around 8 a.m. By the time poll workers opened the doors to the voting chamber at 8:30, the line stretched out the door, down the walkway, and made a left along the sidewalk.

By 10:30 a.m., the only thing that had changed was that now the line took a right on the sidewalk.

Voters like Elizabeth Wilson, a hairdresser who said she was glad she could get to the polls before work, stood in the long line under chilly but blue skies. Wilson said what a lot of voters were saying in the line – that she’s ready to vote and find out where the country will be headed.

“I’m ready to get it over with so I can know I’ve done my part and I don’t need to think about it anymore,” Wilson said.

Wilson said she’s “become quite political in the last couple years.” Her concentration is on the presidential race, but she’s also paying attention to local races this round. York County residents are voting on state legislative seats, school board seats, and referendums, including one for road repair funding.

“I do try and pay attention because I know that matters almost even more,” Wilson said of the local issues.

But the presidential race was what drove most voters to early polls Monday. And at other polling locations around York County, voters said they were just as eager to get to a machine to cast their ballots as Wilson was.

At Clinton College in Rock Hill, Shane and Nicole Carter, husband and wife, turned out early because they didn’t want to take the chance of not being able to vote on Election Day itself.

“I have a job where I don't always know exactly what time I'm going to get off,” Shane said. “I was actually off today, so it was great for me to be able to take advantage of early voting in my situation.”

“With my schedule, with our kids, it's best for me to come out when a kid is at school and I have the baby,” Nicole said. “It's really, really important to come out [to vote] and I wanted to make sure that we didn't have any other issues on Election Day that we weren't able to vote this year. “

She said the reason it’s so important to vote this year is because of what’s at stake for her, and for women.

“I voted for women's rights” Nicole said. “That's crucial this election.”

Beth Bramlett and her daughter, Izzy – who, at 19, voted for the first time this year and is excited by the possibility of a woman being president – concur.

“[I’m voting] to protect my rights,” Izzy said. “The right to have an abortion.”

The issue of bodily autonomy is not an academic one for the Bramletts, Beth said.

“We've had some family members who, because of health reasons, have had issues, and changing of laws might would have changed her outcome,” she said.

Beth, who considers herself an independent, said she also voted this year in hopes that South Carolina becomes more purple in the coming years.

“I would love to see us become more diverse and more competitive in the ticket,” she said. “I would like to feel my vote, which either way I go, can truly have an impact in South Carolina. This time around, my vote may or may not really truly impact South Carolina, but I hope to see it get closer and closer and hopefully this time it will really be a game changer.”

In Fort Mill, Goodman said he voted on three major issues: The border, taxes, and world wars.

“My wife has direct family in both Ukraine and Russia and she'd like to see them,” Goodman said. “So the fact that … we've been tossing money at one side, we've done nothing more than perpetuate a war that could have ended very quickly.”

Goodman himself has family in Israel whom he would also like to see again.

“I'd like to see that go back to another four years of peace, hopefully,” he said. “We'll see what happens.”

 

Scott Morgan is the Upstate multimedia reporter for South Carolina Public Radio, based in Rock Hill. He cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter and editor in New Jersey before finding a home in public radio in Texas. Scott joined South Carolina Public Radio in March of 2019. His work has appeared in numerous national and regional publications as well as on NPR and MSNBC. He's won numerous state, regional, and national awards for his work including a national Edward R. Murrow.