Election expert discusses upcoming statewide primary

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - It is a little more than a month until the next time South Carolina voters will be hitting the ballot boxes for the statewide primary.

Both Republicans and Democrats will vote for state and local candidates, determining who will ultimately be on the ballot in November.

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Justin Vaughn, a political science professor at Coastal Carolina University, told WMBF News turnout is usually lower in state primaries than it is for presidential ones.

“Not having the presidential primary combined with the state primary makes a huge difference,” said Vaughn. “In 2020, we had a 13% Republican turnout, 8% Democratic turnout, so extremely low numbers, and we’ll probably see similar numbers this time.”

Vaughn said if either party gets into the double digits for its percentage of voters, that will be considered a success.

But, something he thinks may help turnout is the fact that this is an open primary, meaning as long as people are registered to vote, they can vote for whichever party they choose.

“The risk that people will point to in those kinds of situations is that people from one party may, en masse, come and try to participate in selecting the candidate for the other party. In reality, we don’t see a lot of that,” said Vaughn. “What it can do is, if you go to a closed primary system, you can have more moderate voters stop participating as much.”

Vaughn said that although this primary most likely won’t have a high turnout, those who do come out have the chance to make a difference.

“It’s going to be interesting to see, within the Republican party, what the ratio of, kind of, liberty Republicans versus more mainstream Republicans come out, because that will tell us exactly what kind of legislative session we’re going to have for the next couple of years,” said Vaughn.

The last day to register to vote online in the June primary is this Sunday, May 12. The deadline to vote by mail is May 13.

The statewide primary is June 11.

Stay with WMBF News for updates.

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