With Barnwell County gearing up for the three school board races, the county voter registration office has already been fielding questions about the election process.

Naomi DeFrenn, the director of the Barnwell County Voter Registration and Elections Office said that she has seen particular interest in these school board elections.

"I've gotten a lot of calls about District 45, mostly questions on how to register voters," she said.

The school board elections are April 13. The last day to register to vote for residents to participate in this election is March 13.

On that day, a Saturday, DeFrenn's office will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to handle final registrants, she said.

The voter registration office is in the Barnwell County Agriculture Building at 34 Pechmann St., Barnwell.

Another thing DeFrenn noted is people picking up a lot of voter registration forms, she said.

However, few have been returned, she said.

Anyone can pick up voter registration forms, even for other people and also turn them back in for other people too, DeFrenn said.

However, applicants should be cautious who returns their registration forms if not themselves because of the personal information on it, like Social Security numbers, she said.

DeFrenn said she has had to defuse many questions on an e-mail rumor about possible voter fraud involving driver's licenses.
The rumor was that people were stating they planned to move into the county and were using their S.C. driver's licenses as identification to register to vote although it showed an out-of-county address, DeFrenn said.

According to the mail-in voter registration application, if an applicant is registering in the county for the first time, they must attach a copy of a valid photo identification or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or other government document to the application.

This document should must show the applicant's name and address in that county.

If this information is not provided with the voter registration form, then it must be provided when voting, according to the application.

The driver's license or state photo identification card is only to verify the identity of the person and not necessarily their legal residence, which should be on the voter registration rolls and voter registration card, DeFrenn said.

This is not to say a person could have a local address on the voter registration rolls but the address on their driver's license states something else, DeFrenn said.

A person should get their driver's license updated and state law requires drivers to update their license with their current address within 10 days of moving to it, she said.

"That's not an election law, that's a DMV law," DeFrenn said. "Just because their driver's license doesn't reflect their correct address, it doesn't mean they haven't gone to the DMV and updated its database."

When a voter moves from one county to another and registers in the new county, the data is recorded in the statewide voter registration database when the voter applies for a new card, DeFrenn said.

"You cannot vote in two counties. You can only be active in one county. It automatically registers you to vote in that county and deactivates you automatically in the other one," she said.

School board elections typically have poor turnout, usually between 10 and 15 percent of the registered voters, DeFrenn said.

There are about 13,540 registered voters in Barnwell County, which has a population of about 24,000. Of these, 6,610 are in Barnwell 45, 3,055 in the Williston school district and 3,875 in Blackville, she said.