Legislative Cover: How SC’s Legislators Helped Create The Election Commission Mess It Now Claims To Fix

In our previous reporting from March 2025 and October 2025, we documented how the South Carolina Election Commission (SEC) former Executive Director Howard “Howie” Knapp used the state’s Master Lease Program as a backdoor to borrow tens of millions of dollars for new election equipment the legislature had explicitly refused to fund just months before.

We now have a much clearer picture of who helped make that happen…and one of those people appears to be the Chairman of the most powerful budget committee in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

In the FY 2024-2025 budget cycle, Knapp requested funds to prematurely replace Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) election machines, which had been used for exactly one 4-year election cycle thus far and which the state spent $51 million on in 2020, despite having been assured by sales reps that the machines would last upwards of 10 years. The SC Senate agreed to fund half ($12.5 million) but made clear they expected the full amount to come through appropriations. The SC House made their position even more plain: they allocated exactly $1.

Within weeks of that rebuke, Senate staffer Rick Harmon, Research Director for the Joint Bond Review Committee, emailed a Senate budget analyst Quentin Hawkins in the early hours of June 12, 2024, outlining precisely how Knapp could go around the legislature to obtain the funds. “Howie has the authority to do this under the Election Commission statute, subject to approval of the Election Commission—no further approvals are required from the JBRC or SFAA.” Harmon forwarded that email to Senate Finance Committee staffers later that day and sent it directly to Knapp the following morning. Knapp forwarded it to Jenny Wooten McGill, his Chief of Staff, the following week.

“Not Simply Staffers”

In an August 12, 2024 email, the SEC Commission Chairman Dennis Shedd stated he wanted “appropriate State Senate and House Leadership (and not simply staffers) to tell us they are supportive of this contract,” noting that to that point, “their actions suggest otherwise.” It seems he was not satisfied with the “verbal assurance” Knapp informed him he had received.

An Email Signed By Bannister…But Not From Bannister?

On August 19, 2024, days before the SEC commission voted to approve the Master Lease purchase, an email landed in Knapp’s inbox. It expressed support for the SEC using the Master Lease Program under SC Code § 1-1-1020 to acquire new voting machines. It was signed: Bruce Bannister, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, South Carolina House of Representatives.

Bruce Bannister did not send that email. It was sent by Kim Jackson, the House Ways & Means Committee Executive Assistant, from KimJackson@schouse.gov.

It appears that the SC House Ways and Means Chairman, whose committee had so recently registered the House’s position by appropriating one dollar, had an executive assistant send an email that would be used to justify a multi-million dollar borrowing commitment on behalf of the state. Whether Bannister personally directed Jackson to send it, or whether she acted on her own presumption of his support, is a question only he can answer. But it carries his name, his title, and his committee’s institutional weight.

The other recipient on that email was none other than Hobart Trotter, the registered lobbyist for ES&S, the company whose machines were being purchased. The vendor’s own lobbyist was copied on what amounted to a legislative endorsement of his client’s sale. That alone deserves an explanation.

Bannister himself was not cc’d on this email.

We are told this is standard practice in the legislature. Executive assistants send out emails on behalf of legislators. That makes sense when arranging agendas or making appointments, but to use that method to authorize the spending of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars? That’s A LOT of power given to an unelected official. Which begs the question that we hinted at in our previous article, does the system that produced this loosey-goosey policy deserve closer scrutiny?

The Commission received an email from an executive assistant bearing the name of the Committee’s Chairman and, apparently, accepted it as sufficient. On August 21, 2024, the Commissioners unanimously voted to authorize Knapp to sign the Master Lease agreement…with, notably, no mention in the minutes of how much they were authorizing him to spend.

It does appear Wooten met with Bannister in January 2025 to discuss the details of the funding of the machines, months after the contract had been signed.

The Amount Kept Growing

This is where it gets even more interesting. Knapp had told commissioners the ES&S price tag was $24.5 million. By September 27, 2024–the day Knapp left signed documents on General Counsel Thomas Nicholson’s chair–Nicholson was already sending documents to the deal’s broker explaining why the SEC was now requesting $28.8 million. Nicholson also noted that “ES&S’ final proposal document was missing the second page that states ES&S’ grand total.” Rates locked September 30, 2024.

By March 2025, Knapp was before the Senate asking for $32 million to repay the loan. By October 2025, after Knapp had been fired, the commission voted to amend the contract to $33 million. That is $8.5 million more than what Commissioners were told when they voted to authorize the deal just one year before.

Chairman Shedd, who then voted to approve the higher amount, stated at the October meeting that he “had no idea this contract would be financed through a third party” and had “very serious concerns” about what Knapp did with the Commission’s authorization. The question he didn’t address: if the Commission was misled, why did they just approve it for $5 million more?

Now add Bannister’s office to the picture. His staffer sent the email that provided legislative-adjacent cover for a deal that Senate staff had architected, SEC staff had operationalized, and the vendor’s lobbyist had been looped into from the start.

Then Came the Arrests

On September 17, 2025, the SEC fired Knapp in a 3-2 vote following a nearly five-hour closed executive session. The next morning, SLED showed up at the State Election Commission to investigate wiretapping allegations after Paige Salonich allegedly placed a hidden recording device in the room where the Commission had just voted to remove Knapp. Salonich was terminated on September 23rd.

On October 24, 2025, both were arrested. Knapp faces eleven charges: eight related to use of his official position for financial gain, one for embezzlement of public funds, one for misconduct in office, and one for accessory after the fact. Salonich faces one charge of wiretapping. Knapp’s bond was set at $75,000. His attorney’s response to reporters was simply: “This is all about politics. We look forward to a very public trial.”

And if you would like to learn about the alleged affair between the two former employees that has now been brought to court by Paige Salonich against the SEC…read HERE.

The SEC’s Top Vendor Stood On the Chopping Block

Following Knapp’s firing, Jenny Wooten was named Interim Director. The change in the State Election Commission happened seemingly overnight: FOIAs were being answered freely and without copious redactions, and relationships began to be rebuilt with staff and media alike that had previously been treated with hostility under the former Director and former Deputy Director’s reign.

Wooten began cracking down on staff interactions with vendors, specifically ES&S. In an email sent before the South Carolina Association of Registration and Election Officials (SCARE) conference, Wooten gave strict instructions that staff was not allowed to attend meals with vendors/vendor representatives, “accept anything of monetary value from a vendor…even a cup of coffee”, nor were they allowed to attend the vendor-sponsored networking event that was being held offsite.

On February 24, 2026, Interim Director Wooten presented the SEC’s budget in front of the SC Senate Constitutional Budget Subcommittee. In the hearing, Wooten requested $18 million for new pollbooks, citing that the contract on the previous pollbooks ended in September 2025. “We have the equipment, we will continue to use the equipment but we do not have the authority or ability to purchase anymore.”

Wooten stated that the State Election Commission would put out a request of proposal (RFP) for a public bid in order to procure more equipment, emphasizing that the SEC would get the lowest cost possible. Currently, the SEC has exclusively used ES&S as their vendor for all machines. This signaled that Wooten may be looking to break the longstanding relationship that was previously built by former election directors Marci Andino and Howard Knapp, who were both known for having very close relationships with ES&S, according to internal sources.

Providing there is nothing tying the systems together (e-poll books, ballot marking devices, and tabulators), there is no reason to sole source this contract and splitting them up would be the superior choice as having poll book data that logs date/location of voting reside with the same company that holds the data that logs the ballots (with early voting, this is so much more spread out because the precincts are jumbled and the process is spread out) it is not out of the realm of possibility that ES&S has the ability to determine how most, if not every, South Carolinian is voting, which would be a violation of the SC Constitution.

After this meeting, Senator Larry Grooms stated that South Carolina “wasted” $31 million on the previously purchased machines and that the upgrades from ES&S were all “hype”, as noted by The State Newspaper. This is akin to getting a new iPhone every time a new model comes out.

Now the Senate Wants to Remove the Person Cleaning Up the Mess

Now Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, with support from Sen. Chip Campsen, is working to block Wooten’s confirmation as permanent Director and install their own person in the role. According to FITSNews, new SEC Chairman Robert Bolchoz, who was appointed after Dennis Shedd’s resignation, is said to be taking his marching orders directly from Massey rather than from Governor McMaster, who appointed him. One source told FITSNews bluntly: “The governor is getting cuckolded.”

The stated motivation, according to FITSNews sources, is Massey’s desire to control ongoing negotiations over the release of South Carolina’s voter file to the Trump DOJ…negotiations Massey reportedly wants to dictate from the Senate. It is worth noting that both Massey and Campsen supported Tim Scott and then Nikki Haley in the 2024 presidential primary against Trump, and that Knapp was allegedly working from inside the agency on behalf of Massey and Democratic minority leader Brad Hutto when they sought to block the voter file’s release last summer.

But there is another thread here that hasn’t received enough attention: the Senator who wants to remove the Interim Director that is cracking down on inappropriate relationships with ES&S who may not receive an $18 million contract, is operating in the same political ecosystem that produced the original Master Lease deal…a deal in which ES&S’s lobbyist was copied on a letter of support from the Ways and Means Chairman’s office.

Since the pressure from the Senate has become clear that they would not confirm her, Jenny Wooten has withdrawn her name for consideration for Executive Director of the State Election Commission.

A Pattern That Keeps Repeating

SC Code § 1-1-1020 authorizes the State Treasurer’s office to provide financing for agency equipment purchases. It says nothing about requiring General Assembly approval before borrowing tens of millions of dollars. It does not address what happens when the legislature has already refused to fund the very equipment being purchased. The Treasurer’s office is a rubber stamp.

The legislature said no. A Senate staffer wrote the workaround memo. A House chairman’s executive assistant provided cover. The vendor’s lobbyist was copied on the endorsement. The commission voted on an amount they were never fully told. The number grew by $8.5 million. The former director was arrested and charged. And the person trying to bring order to the agency has been forced out by the same legislative forces that helped create the mess.

At this point, the South Carolina Election Commission isn’t so much a government agency as it is a revolving door of scandal with a budget line. Directors get arrested, deputies plant listening devices, contracts grow by millions in the dark, and the one person who showed up with a mop gets pushed out the moment she started making people uncomfortable. The only thing that seems stable at the SEC is the instability and the quiet, persistent presence of the people who profit from it.

Article posted with permission from Palmetto State Watch Foundation