It’s strange that it took this long, but now both the South Carolina House of Representatives and the South Carolina Senate have made rules changes so that more of their votes will be recorded.
The issue got plenty of attention during and after the election this year, and so we congratulate both bodies for making the changes.
Some are still pushing for more votes to be recorded.
Anything that can be done to make government more transparent without slowing down the process or making it much more expensive is a good thing.
And, as one candidate for a local House seat told the Morning News during last year’s election, the past practice made it hard to research a legislator’s positions on key matters.
But before the House came to a final agreement on changing the way it records votes, they had to change a decision made in December that would have recorded a “yes” vote to every legislator when there was a voice only vote on an issue.
That was unless a member came forward and asked to be listed as “no.”
In addition the House members added, several more measures that must have a recorded vote for passage.
The Senate changed its rules that will require recorded roll-call votes on more of the legislation it handles.
In the past, most key action in the Senate came on voice votes.
A sticking point in the Senate to require even more recorded votes is that the Senate doesn’t have an electronic voting system like the House.
It seems that the Senate could figure out a much easier way to count votes without much more expense.
We bet that using computer technology, each senator is issued a laptop computer, a way could be found to count votes without having to do it “by hand.”
And it seems like even more votes could be taken by roll call.
We certainly don’t advocate votes on resolutions praising mothers and apple pie.
But taking roll call votes so that constituents can have a record of where there legislators stand seems basic.
That would be unless some of them have something to hide.
Anyway, a big step forward has been taken.
After the dust settles on these changes, we hope they will consider even more changes.
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