 FLORENCE, S.C. - A Florence man has been arrested on charges of using names and personal information of people, including the mayor of Florence, on more than 1,000 voter registration forms and turning them in to the county voter registration office. Terence Hines, 44, was taken into custody Wednesday on charges of forgery and multiple counts of fraudulent registration or voting, prosecutor Ed Clements III said. The State Law Enforcement Division began investigating soon after Hines turned in more than 1,500 completed forms to the Florence County Voter Registration Office last Thursday. "Florence County election officials began checking some of the names and quickly found out that a lot of the people were already registered and the information on the forms didn't match what was on the records, and several other people whose names were on these forms were deceased," Clements said. "None of the information added up."
"Amazing, Inspector! What tipped you off?"
"Well, Legume..." |
A registration form for Florence Mayor Frank Willis "sent up a red flag," voter registration and elections director Russell Barrett said. "We were pretty sure that the mayor was already a registered voter and had been for some time."
| "Brilliant, Inspector! Simply brilliant!" |
A check of voter registration records showed that although Willis' name and address matched records, nothing else on the recently submitted form was correct. "The more I thought about it, the more I just couldn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to use my name of all names on a fictitious voter registration form," Willis said. After confirming that information on almost all of the forms was either fake or wrong, election officials contacted SLED, which in turn contacted Clements. According to the arrest affidavit provided by SLED, Hines was employed by the South Carolina Progressive Network.
| Ahah! He's a Progressive! That explains it! |
The Progressive Network's Web site describes the organization as a broad-based coalition of advocacy groups and individual activists from across the state who have joined forces to promote social and economic change in South Carolina. Hines, who was gathering the forms as part of a nationwide voter registration drive, was referred to the Progressive Network by the national Civic Engagement Project that was not working in South Carolina, said Brett Bursey, director of the network. Hundreds of legitimate forms had been turned in, Bursey said, but on the day before registration ended more than 1,000 fraudulent registrations were submitted. The Progressive Network reported it to authorities on Oct. 4, he said. "We take voting very seriously," said Donna Dewitt, co-chair of the network. "We regret that Mr. Hines misrepresented himself to our organization, and we believe that our effort to include more South Carolinians in the voting process helps make our system more democratic and equitable." Clements said any attempt to defraud the voting process is a threat to the entire democratic process. Election officials are working to make sure that registration forms legitimately filled out by potential voters are processed properly. But Clements said the chance that one of those forms might slip through the cracks is another issue of concern. "Some of these forms could have actually been filled out by people who now think they're registered and might end up going to the polls only to find out they aren't," Clements said. "It's a horrible, horrible situation that could end up disenfranchising voters." |