YORK COUNTY, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) Ballots were cast and votes were counted. The 2020 presidential election was one of the busiest for York County’s Voter Registration and Elections Office.
Now, nearly four months later, what happens when there’s no election?
Things might’ve gotten a little quieter here at York County’s Registration and Election Office, but they have not slowed down. With more than 700 express ballots, more than 100 ballot tabulators, and more than 300 pole books there’s plenty to keep them busy.
Alan Helms, Deputy Director of the York County Voter Registration & Elections Office, says, “The first thing we do is start trying to clean up, get things back to where they came from, re-organize and we also go through lessons learned.”
This year there’s an extra step because of the pandemic, cleaning and sorting PPE and sanitizing supplies.
York County has 96 precincts and more than 80 polling locations. All materials for each location are sorted and stored at the election office.
“The ballot would go through here and go up and go around and overtime and there’s a printer bar right here, the two green dots that’s a printer bar, and then down here there’s a little piece of glass and it can build up with lent and things like that we just want to clean it off,” explains Helms.
Each machine is disassembled, inspected, cleaned, and inventoried, with nearly 1,200 machines total, this process can take months.
Finally ballot storage. All York County ballot from 2020’s election are at the office for several months before approved destruction.
“It’s a very fun, very challenging experience to work in this office. You get to see democracy in progress right there and so it’s very encouraging and exciting,” says Helms.
Leaders say on election day there’s as many as 40 people here that York County office and 1,200 people across the county helping voters cast their ballots. Now, with a humble seven people working in the office, they still say there’s plenty of work to be done.
In the video above, CN2’s Rachel Richardson is taking us on an inside look at what happens at the York County Voter Registration and Elections office, outside of election season.
