‘This isn’t conspiracy stuff’: Beaufort Co. Council candidate can’t find his name on ballot
Mike Covert of Bluffton has been campaigning for the District 6 seat on the Beaufort County Council for months but he got a big surprise when he went to early vote Wednesday evening: His name wasn’t on the ballot.
“Let me say that again,” said Covert, his voice rising, “I wasn’t on the ballot.”
And not only him. The name of his opponent in Tuesday’s Republican primary, Tab Tabernik, was not on the ballot either, he noted.
Covert wants to know how many residents were given the incorrect ballot?
“This isn’t conspiracy stuff,” Covert said, “this happened to me.”
Covert’s disappointing discovery alerted officials with the Beaufort County Board of Voter Registration and Elections that the names of some County Council candidates were omitted from ballots.
But Marie Smalls, the director of the Beaufort County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet late Thursday afternoon the problem was isolated to five precincts in Bluffton and Hilton Head. The issue, she said, has been fixed so all of the ballots cast from here until Tuesday’s primary will be correct.
In total, about 70 people, she said, used the incorrect ballots in the Bluffton precincts, Smalls said. A couple of Hilton Head precincts also may have been affected, but her office still was investigating who those voters are.
“The unfortunate things is — and all I can do is apologize — there is nothing we can do about those who cast the ballots,” Smalls said.
In other words, they can’t vote again.
Beaufort County recently approved changes in political boundaries based on new population data. Some of the redistricting information was not updated to voting records, which caused the issue, Smalls said.
“It was one of those things we should have double-checked to make sure every voter was updated — which we thought we did,” Smalls said.
Early voting, which began Tuesday, May 31, ends Friday, June 10. Voting during the primary on Tuesday begins at 7 a.m. and the polls close at 7 p.m.
When Covert alerted an elections official at the Bluffton satellite office, 61B Ulmer Road, he was told “the ballot is what the ballot is.” That’s when a look came over Covert’s face, he said, “like I was about to come loose.”
Covert convinced elections officials to do more checking and they discovered that county records incorrectly showed Covert being in District 7, which is Rose Hill, Berkeley Hall, Buckwalter Place, Hampton Hall and Pritchardville. Covert is registered in District 6, which includes Sun City, Okatie and Pinckney Colony.
Local polling officials communicated with Smalls, who said the office worked with state elections officials to resolve the problem.
Since Covert had not yet voted when he brought the problem to the attention of poll workers, Covert and his wife were issued a new ballot and were able to vote.
He recounted the story in a Facebook live session Wednesday evening.
He spent thousands of dollars in the race, Covert said, only to find “your name isn’t even on the ... ticket?”
Covert said he reported the issue to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s office and state elections officials.
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 6:16 PM.
