South Carolina has agreed to drop its requirement that people registering to vote disclose their full Social Security number, Democratic campaign leaders announced Tuesday.
They hailed the agreement — in response to a lawsuitfiled by the state's Democratic Party and the party's Senate and House campaign arms — as one of the most important victories yet for one of their major 2020 strategies: filing voting rights lawsuits in many competitive states, hoping the courts will strike down an array of election regulations in time to help boost the party's turnout this fall.
"This is a massive early win," said Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
One million eligible South Carolinians are not registered, Bustos said, claiming the state's unusual Social Security requirement was part of a successful effort by Republicans to hold down those numbers among African-Americans. Three in 10 people in the state are black and they vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
"These things are still lingering in South Carolina and across the South," the most prominent elected black Democrat in the country, House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, said of the history of voter suppression of African-Americans.
Clyburn said black people, especially, are uncomfortable giving out their full Social Security numbers and so the change announced Tuesday should prove a boon to his party. He said state Democrats have a plan in place to begin registering and turning out voters. While the party's chances of coloring the state blue on the presidential map this fall are slim, it is fighting intensely to hold on to one of the party's two House seats and is making a spirited run to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Republican, wrote federal Judge J. Michelle Childs that he was modifying the original 1967 attorney general's opinion backing the requirement of a full Social Security number. While that opinion was still "technically correct," Wilson said, the more modern practice used in millions of commercial and governmental transactions is to require just the last four digits.
Wilson also told the judge his office's views were also changing based on one of his predecessor's formal opinions, which said all doubts on such issues should be resolved "in favor of the right to vote, which is a fundamental right."
Childs has yet to agree to the proposed settlement.
The plaintiffs maintained the rules violate both the First Amendment's rights of speech and political association and the Civil Rights Act, because the requirement creates an unnecessary obstacle to voting.
South Carolina is one of just three states that require full Social Security numbers be included on voter registration forms. The others are Virginia and Tennessee. While federal law has prohibited requiring people to disclose their whole Social Security number since 1974, the states were grandfathered in because their requirements predated that law.
Bustos said the victory shows the value of the strategy put forth by the two campaign committees, which are spending tens of millions of dollars on voting rights lawsuits this election cycle. So far more than a dozen have been filed. "The work is long term; it's a major investment," she said.
According to Bustos, legal victories had already have been achieved in three other states, all of which will be intensely contested this fall after President Trump carried them narrowly last time:
- In North Carolina, the General Assembly has reversed the elimination of early voting on the last Saturday before Election Day. Bustos said African-Americans are most likely to vote on that day. State and national Democrats had filed a lawsuit over the issue.
- In Michigan, the settlement last summer of a lawsuit funded by the DCCC will make it easier for students on college campuses to register. Changes approved in a ballot initiative in 2018, including no-excuses absentee voting, same-day registration and on-line registration, will make it easier for those students to cast their ballots.
- In Florida, a federal judge in November ruled unconstitutional a requirement that all candidates of the party that holds the governor's office be listed first on the ballot. The judge said the requirement had given Florida Republicans an advantage of 5 percentage points in elections over the past two decades.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."