News & Commentary

Following our lawsuit, in September the South Carolina legislature passed legislation to allow all voters to cast absentee ballots because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

We are thrilled that the South Carolina Legislature has ended this cruel and inhumane practice, greatly increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes for incarcerated parents and their newborn children.

For the past 50 years, the ACLU of South Carolina has worked to ensure access to the ballot. This year, in the face of one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, we expanded this work to ensure that every vote counted.

The court order and the directive assured hundreds of voters that their votes would count.

Charleston County voters chose a platform that will address head-on the disproportionate burden our system places on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor people.

There is a stark difference between the image and reality of law enforcement in South Carolina. Seven months after numerous law enforcement agencies brutalized people protesting police brutality in Charleston, the agencies still refuse to hold themselves accountable.

Across the nation, nursing homes with predominantly Black and Latinx residents are twice as likely to suffer the impacts of COVID-19 as those with predominantly white populations. 

This year has shown us that in order to shift power and create true accountability, we must meaningfully invest in community organizing. The ACLU of SC is proud to be a small part of the movement for an equitable and just South Carolina.

COVID-19 has laid bare the longstanding inadequacies of South Carolina’s prisons and jails. Under this system, approximately 30,000 people are caged each day and night.