Elections Board Not Following Its Public Information Rules

While political candidates, operatives, reporters and voters across Richland County try to piece together how things turned out so wrong at Tuesday's elections, one relatively small thing is slowing them down.

Piecing together what the Richland County Elections and Voter Registration Board knew about and did to prevent the near-disaster — — is nearly impossible because the commission has not been following its own public information rules.

At the board's Sept. 27, 2011, meeting — just a few months after the elections board and the voter registration board combined, and Lillian McBride was named its first director — the board unanimously approved a measure to post all agendas and meeting minutes online.

While the board followed that policy for 2011's six meetings, it apparently ceased with the turn of the calendar to 2012. Agendas for the board's four meetings this year have been posted, but no minutes.

And with little media oversight of the board, there is no public record easily available to determine what problems were discussed, what the board expected of the 2012 election and why poll workers and voting machines were so overwhelmed.

Questions via email and phone to Richland County's public information department on the matter have not been returned. McBride has been unavailable to the media since Tuesday.