What happened in the Iowa caucus won’t happen in South Carolina primary. Here’s why.
After the chaos that left Iowa Democrats unable to name a clear winner Monday night in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, South Carolina election officials want to assure voters a similar situation won’t happen here.
There’s a major difference between the way South Carolina and Iowa voters choose their candidates for the Democratic nominee. South Carolina, which has its election in about three weeks, will hold a presidential primary. While, Iowa voters choose their candidates in a caucus.
“The Democratic presidential preference primary is very different than a caucus, so right off the bat, we’re not an apples to apples comparison,” Chris Whitmire, spokesperson for the South Carolina Election Commission, said. “It’s a completely different process.”
The Iowa caucus is run by political parties. Each candidate is allowed a section of a precinct, usually a gym, church or library, and registered Democrats physically group themselves into the section designated to their preferred candidate.
A candidate must garner at least 15% of the room. If a candidate fails to get 15%, supporters disband the group and join another candidate’s group, persuade other caucus-goers to join their group or withdraw from the process.
Once the results are finalized, candidates earn delegates, who are sent to county conventions in March, in proportion to the supporters in their group.
The Iowa Democratic Party was not able to release full results Monday night and into Tuesday morning, and blamed reporting inconsistencies for the delay, McClatchy DC reported.
South Carolina is the first state in the South to hold a primary and during the state’s Feb. 29 primary, voters will directly choose their presidential candidate on a ballot. Whitmire said the state’s primary is just like any other state election.
“We’re not doing really anything special,” Whitmire said. “We’re doing what we do nearly every Tuesday of every year. There’s an election going on somewhere in South Carolina, and so we’re doing this nearly every week.”
The state has an open primary system, which means a voter does not have to be a registered Democrat to cast a ballot in this year’s primary. The state’s Republican Party executive committee voted to skip the party’s 2020 presidential preference primary.
“They are one of the simplest elections,” Whitmire said. “There’s one office. Every ballot across the state is the same and voters can vote that ballot very quickly.”
Trouble with a mobile app also forced a delay in reporting Iowa results Monday night, McClatchy DC reported. Whitmire said he’s gotten questions about South Carolina’s new voting system, which was unveiled in June, after Iowa’s technical difficulties.
The new system, which now requires a paper ballot and features a paper record of every voter’s ballot, has been used in over 200 local elections and will be tested in each county a couple days before the February primary, Whitmire said.
“We now will have a paper record of every voter’s voted ballot, which adds another layer of security and gives us more confidence in the election,” he said. “We will be using the same voting equipment and applying the same processes that we use in all elections.”
Whitmire also said every precinct is required to post election results of the respective precincts before ballot boxes are delivered to the county elections office.
“We worry about this stuff all the time,” he said. “The key phrase is all the time. We’ve got this.”
With South Carolina’s primary coming up, Whitmire urged residents to check voter registration of the State Election Commission’s website. He said multiple precincts could be voting at one polling place, so voters should check polling information with their county election’s office. He said that information will be available on the State Election Commission’s website closer to the primary.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 11:00 AM.
