A computer glitch could prevent 1,900 teenagers from voting in South Carolina

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — An advocacy group wants South Carolina to reopen voter registration for nearly 1,900 teenagers after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles failed to notify election officials that they checked the box to register when they got their driver’s licenses.

The teens were 17 when they went to the DMV, but they will be 18 by Election Day. A glitch in the DMV’s computers didn’t identify the teens as qualified or provide them with an additional electronic form to prove they were citizens and not criminals, and otherwise have the right to vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Tuesday, a day after early voting opened in South Carolina. They provided several possible ways teenagers could register and be allowed to vote, and Judge Daniel Coble promised to rule later Friday after hearing arguments.

“This is a case about a fundamental constitutional right,” said ACLU attorney Allen Chaney. “First-time voters will be wrongfully excluded from a historic election.”

But lawyers for the South Carolina Board of Elections, SCDMV, the General Assembly and the governor’s office argued, while they sympathized with teenagers who might miss their first chance to vote for president, that it was simply too late to address registration issues at county election offices busy with early voting.

It is necessary to identify potential voters, verify their right to vote and add them to the lists. “None of this can happen before the general election,” said Michael Burkstead, a lawyer for the state Board of Elections.

About 6,000 additional teens affected by the glitch were still able to sign up after checking and seeing that the process hadn’t been completed and they weren’t on the list, including a 17-year-old who exposed the problem and told his mom, who then let to the Democratic lawmaker now, what is happening that prompted the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the state said the burden should have been placed on the teenagers to make sure they could vote by the registration deadline earlier this month.

ACLU officials said that as first-time voters, they may not have known that clicking the box that said “yes, I want to register” meant they would not be registered.

“They have not been successfully registered and will not know until Election Day,” Cheney said.

Judge Coble said he understands the time constraints and will rule as soon as possible. In the first four days of early voting in South Carolina, more than 511,000 votes were cast, or about 15% of all eligible voters.

Earlier this month, Coble decided to extend the registration deadline by about a week because of extensive damage and power outages from Hurricane Helen. From the bench on Friday, he said it was “an act of God, not an act of man.”

The DMV worked with the ACLU to try to determine the extent of the problem. They had to individually review each application that met the instructions to see if the teenager checked the box to register to vote.

And all the lawyers in the state said they will work to make sure it doesn’t happen again

“We share with the ACLU the goal of free, fair, safe and secure elections,” said Kevin Hall, attorney for South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander.