Fact Check: South Carolina Poll Workers Cannot Press Buttons For Voters During Curbside Voting
Does a viral video discussing poll workers bringing “machines” to voters’ cars prove “election cheating” in Florence, South Carolina? No, that’s not true: The director of the Florence County Board of Voter Registration and Elections told Lead Stories they refuted the claim. They called the video “misinformation” about curbside voting, which is reserved for people with disabilities, the elderly and those who can’t stand in line for a long time.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 24, 2024, three days after early voting began in South Carolina. The video’s caption read:
A graphic on the video said:
the election cheating
In the video, a man sitting in a car said:
OK, tell me, if this is right. I just went by one of the places that you vote at where I live at. And you don’t go in to vote. You pull up in your car. They bring the machine out to your car. They push the buttons for you. There was no Republicans there. They were all Democrats. What is going on, America?
The man concluded:
If they say Kamala Harris won South Carolina, I understand why and how they did it.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Nov 5 17:12:14 2024 UTC)
In one of its later clips (archived here), the same account added more details about the location the video was talking about. The man said it was Third Loop Road in Florence, South Carolina. The poster implied that in this area voters stayed in their cars, while poll workers made choices for them.
He provided no visual proof of his claim.
The claim, however, was false.
According to the South Carolina Election Commission (archived here), curbside voting — voting from the car — is a legitimate part of the voting process:
Voters who are unable to access the polling place or stand in line to vote due to a disability or being age 65 or older may vote in their vehicle. Curbside voting does not require a disability parking placard. Poll managers monitor the curbside voting area at a minimum of 15-minute intervals. Only the voter is allowed in the vehicle while voting unless the voter is entitled to assistance. The driver and other passengers in the vehicle are not entitled to vote curbside unless they individually meet the qualifications.
When asked about the claim, Florence County Board of Voter Registration and Elections Director Julian Young told Lead Stories via email on November 5, 2024:
This is definitely misinformation.
He continued:
The workers are never to touch screens and are trained accordingly and take oaths in how they perform their tasks. To date, we haven’t had anyone write an incident report stating that the outside curbside workers have touched the screens while assisting the voter at their vehicles.
When asked a follow-up question about the screens, Young replied via email the same day:
I’m referring to the voter’s screen outside.
He also explained that curbside voters are verified via a photo ID and electronic poll books.
Finally, no credible news sources indexed by Google News produced reports about the purported “cheating” in Florence, South Carolina. A search for the keywords seen here (archived here) returned a single result: an AFP review of a similar claim deemed false.
A more detailed overview of curbside voting can be found on page 74 of the 2024 South Carolina Poll Manager Handbook (archived here).
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
