The Post and Courier of Charleston South Carolina is reporting (Double voting possibility looms for 2008 primaries) that there might be a few problems come primary election day in South Carolina. It seems that South Carolina law does not stipulate that voters should register with a particular political party before voting in that party's primary. Hence, you could have a voter show up and vote in the Democrat primary (Jan 29), then show up four days later and vote in the Republican primary (Feb 2) and there's apparently no way to either track it or prevent it.

The people in charge of South Carolina's presidential primaries say they don't yet have a way to ensure voters won't cast ballots in both the Democratic and Republican contests, something that has the potential to skew the nation's first Southern primaries.

Primaries in the state are run by the two political parties and don't require people first to register with one or the other to vote. The 2008 White House race marks the first times since 1992 when both parties will hold primary votes in the same election cycle - balloting slated to take place four days apart.

Last year, Republicans and Democrats talked about quickly sharing voter lists to bar people from voting in both primaries. But the leaders of both state organizations now say they're not certain that will happen.

Admittedly, when one speaks of voter fraud, it's usually about the general election -- not the primaries. But this situation just begs for foul play. The sad thing is that it looks as if this problem was identified with plenty of time to resolve it, but no one on the local level bothered to fix it. Shared computer databases anyone?