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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Election officials across the Midlands are preparing for the South Carolina primaries.

On Monday, WIS News 10 spoke to three election directors across the Midlands who said that they are excited for the South Carolina primaries.

They said it will be all hands on deck.

Aurora Smalls, director of Orangeburg County’s voter registration, and her staff are in the midst of preparing for one of the most highly-contested primaries in Orangeburg. They are marking off the final checklist for 53 precincts across the county.

WIS asked Smalls how confident voters should feel their vote will count when they cast their ballot.

”This is the ballot marketing device and with this device, voters can stick their ballots inside and it will mark the ballot. If for some reason the ballot marketing device is not working, we have paper ballots which are provisional or emergency ballots that voters can also use to cast their ballots,” said Smalls.

Smalls would later explain that after the ballot is cast, voters will go to a scanner to count the ballot. If the scanner does not work, voters can put the ballot in a bin underneath the scanner. Those votes will be counted later Tuesday evening.

WIS spoke to Richland and Lexington County’s polling directors on their preparations for the primaries, and they tell me that their voting machines are ready to go, and were tested in the last 30 days.

John Catalano, who works for the South Carolina Elections Commission, said approximately 120,000 registered voters voted during the early voting period.

He said that some locations could have long lines Tuesday.

”Voters can expect some lines at their polling locations at the beginning of the day, which is traditionally the busiest time to go vote. But overall for voter turnout, we’re not expecting it to be extremely high because it’s a primary. So turnout typically tends to be on the lower side,” said Catalano.

WIS asked each county about staffing of poll workers for Tuesday.

Orangeburg and Richland are at minimum staffing.

Officials there would have hoped to have some additional workers to accommodate any last minute call outs.

Lexington County said it’s fully staffed.

Polling locations open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

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