Another allegation of voter fraud surfaced Thursday in the Dillon County Probate Judge race. The county election commission members have asked state police to investigate.
Thursday afternoon, this reporter spoke with a 29-year-old Dillon woman, who asked that she not be identified. She told us, and police that a man gave her $20 and a brand new dress in exchange for her vote by absentee ballot.
Police in Dillon have given state police her information.
In the meantime Thursday, voter registration officials certified the results of Tuesday night's Dillon County Probate Judge runoff race, after two recounts. The results now show Teresa Campbell defeated Penny German by 17 votes. That's just one vote less than the count showed Tuesday night.
The allegation of voter fraud that surfaced Wednesday is still under investigation. Willie Ruth Rowland says when she went to vote Tuesday, voter registration officials told her she'd already voted.
After some checking, Rowland learned her name had been forged on an absentee ballot. Police checked out 30 other ballots and found four of them to be questionable.
Last month, officials with the Political Action Committee in Dillon announced they were offering a reward of $10,000 leading to the conviction of voter fraud.
A member of that group says in recent days they've gotten several calls about it. "It doesn't surprise me, but it's sad for the county though. The whole idea is that we want to make sure that everybody knows they can vote, that their vote counts, that they don't have to compete for that type of vote. That's why when we set up the reward. We were hoping to deter hat type of activity. But evidently some people thought it was necessary for their candidate to win," said Bo McInnis, PAC.
Police expect state police to accept the request to investigate.
