The “Only” Constitutional Amendment on the SC Ballot in November 2024
Are You Ready to Vote on This Question Come November?
The South Carolina 2024 General Election ballot will have a constitutional amendment question that you must understand ahead of time in order to make a fully informed vote. Let's break it down:
How It Started
On August 12, 2024, The South Carolina State Election Commission (SEC) released the constitutional amendment question that will be on all ballots in the 2024 general election for South Carolinian voters.
The proposed constitutional amendment question states the following:
"Must Section 4, Article II of the Constitution of this State, relating to voter qualifications, be amended so as to provide that only a citizen of the United States and of this State of the age of eighteen and upwards who is properly registered is entitled to vote as provided by law?"
Make sure you read this question very carefully before we look at the current South Carolina State Constitution...
Section 4, Article II of the SC State Constitution
With this information, Palmetto State Watch took a look at the current Section 4, Article II of the South Carolina State Constitution. We found that it currently uses the exact same language proposed in the Constitutional amendment question EXCEPT changing "every" to "only":
“Every citizen of the United States and of this State of the age of eighteen and upwards who is properly registered is entitled to vote as provided by law.”
Why is the legislature asking voters to decide on a constitutional amendment when similar language is already in the State Constitution? Lets take a look at who decided to add this question to the SC 2024 general election ballot...
Who Decided to Add This Question on the Ballot?
In order to answer this question, I called the SEC and spoke with John Michael Catalano. Catalano said that the General Assembly votes on the questions added to the South Carolina ballot. For context, South Carolina has had 7 state constitutions and our current constitution (1895) has been amended 409 times. In this case, the General Assembly decided on this question by passing resolution S1126 that was sponsored by several Democrat and Republican Senators. On April 3, 2024 SC State Senators voted 40-3 to pass and the House voted unanimously on May 1st and May 2nd to pass this resolution.
Catalano pointed me to Section 7-13-2110 that explains proposed constitutional amendments and Section 7-13-2120 of the SC Code of Laws that created the Constitutional Ballot Commission. This Commission is composed of the Attorney General (Alan Wilson), the Director of the State Election Commission (Howard Knapp), and the Director of the Legislative Council (Ashley Harwell-Beach). According to the SC Code of Law, this Commission decides whether or not the question needs an explanation. In this case, it was deemed no explanation was necessary.
What's the Importance of One Word Change?
I spoke with the main sponsor of this bill, Senator Josh Kimbrell. Kimbrell expressed that this is a move several states have made (namely Florida, Tennessee, and Colorado) to make sure that illegal aliens will not be allowed to vote. I decided to look into Florida and when they passed this amendment to their state constitution. It seems these ballot initiatives are being pushed by Citizen Voters, a nonprofit founded by former Missouri Senator John Loudon in 2018. Citizen Voters gave Florida Citizen Voters $8.3 million to pass this ballot initiative which it successfully did on the 2020 Florida ballot. Similar support was shown in Colorado, Alabama, and North Dakota to pass the same ballot initiative during the 2018 and 2020 elections.
Why is the SC Ballot Different?
Every ballot initiative passed was changing the state constitution from "every citizen" to "only a citizen" that typically had a variety of explanations attached depending on the state. However, the same question that is posed on the South Carolina ballot has no explanation added. As we previously discussed, this decision would have been made by the Constitutional Ballot Commission, aka the Attorney General, Executive Director of the State Election Commission, and Director of the Legislative Council. Why is this commission refusing to inform the voter on a question that is supposed to be a big deal? I have a difficult time believing every voter will know exactly what they are voting on when they head to the ballot box. Personally, it took a conversation with the SC SEC and the main sponsor of this question to be able to understand the amendment and its implications myself. It seems that the Commission may believe that this ballot measure will be passed by SC voters without explanation, which is why the amendment was seemingly rubber stamped.
What do you think about this amendment? Will the constitutional change matter, or is it merely an act to make voters feel like their vote is more secure? Should there have been an accompanying explanation on the ballot? Let us know what you think in the comments!
There may be other local questions on your ballot, so make sure to check out your sample ballot by going to SCVotes.gov before you cast your vote.
It’s the responsibility of every eligible voter to ensure they know what’s on the ballot at every election cycle and no one else’s. Growing up, myself and my siblings had to research things for ourselves and taught to know who was to be on the ballot every election cycle (primary and general). What’s wrong with ensuring that this issue is being addressed? Also, you do understand that morals, ethics and values change over time and seem to be changing faster. Why do you have to make life so complicated? Do your own research.