South Carolina Republicans took the first step Friday to cancel the state’s June primary election — to give more time to potentially pass a new gerrymandered congressional map — as absentee voting is already underway.
A South Carolina House subcommittee voted 3-2 along party lines to advance a bill that would move the state’s June 9 primary election to August 11, with the expectation that the legislature would redraw the state’s congressional map to dismantle its lone Democratic district, represented by longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The vote came after the committee heard hours of public testimony urging lawmakers to reject pressure to delay the state’s primaries and draw new congressional maps. In all, 23 South Carolina residents testified against redistricting and moving the state’s primaries. No one spoke in support of either measure.
I honestly thought that their response to blue states gerrymandering their own districts in retaliation was for them to finally give up the game and try to advocate for a national ban, like we’ve been trying to do for years unsuccessfully.
I never imagined the actual response was going to be to speedrun cancelling elections that they know they are about to lose so they have more time to redraw their already gerrymandered maps to be somehow even worse than before.