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by WILL FOLKS
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The newly reconfigured South Carolina State Election Commission (SCVotes) will host a special-called meeting this coming Monday (March 9, 2026) at 3:00 p.m. EDT, according to a hastily posted notice on its official website.
Per the notice (.pdf), the entirety of the upcoming meeting will be held behind closed doors as commissioners are set to discuss “personnel matters” as well as “negotiations incident to proposed contractual arrangements.”
They will also receive legal advice on undisclosed issues…
Aside from the fact it’s taking place completely in the dark, what makes this meeting noteworthy?
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Last week, our media outlet provided extensive coverage on the latest push by leaders in the S.C. Senate to meddle with the governance of SCVotes – which they did to calamitous results just five years ago.
Senators engineered the ouster of this agency’s longtime director in 2021 – and promptly orchestrated the confirmation of her successor.
Their meddling ended calamitously. Last fall, former elections director Howie Knapp and his top deputy, Paige Salonich, were terminated from their positions – and then criminally indicted – as part of an ongoing investigation into a wide range of misconduct allegations. Knapp and Salonich also allegedly engaged in a torrid workplace affair while they were running the agency into the ground.
Investigations into their conduct – and the conduct of lobbyists linked to them – by the S.C. Office of Inspector General (SCOIG) and the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) are ongoing.
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Despite this debacle, as we noted last week “senators are once again trying to manipulate the commission’s independent appointment process in the hopes of installing yet another one of their cronies to this position.”
Not only that, senators led by majority leader Shane Massey are attempting to expand their power over the executive appointments to this agency’s governing commission – forcing them to be subject to Senate confirmation moving forward.
“Hopefully the governor and his commissioners will take a firm stand against what amounts to yet another usurpation of their executive authority – the most recent in a long line of usurpations which have shredded any semblance of accountability or constitutional separation of powers,” we noted last week.
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we keep close tabs on this latest legislative effort to seize power from an executive agency – one whose functioning should be free from politically motivated meddling.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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