The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of a South Carolina citizen challenging an unconstitutional requirement that poll workers swear a mandatory religious oath.
Jim Reel, the plaintiff, sought to serve his community as a poll worker for the 2024 election. While Reel completed the required online training, he was not allowed to substitute a secular affirmation for a religious oath to finalize his appointment to the position. Due to his sincerely held convictions, Reel is unwilling to swear “so help me God,” because he is an atheist.
The defendants are the interim executive director of the South Carolina Election Commission, the director of voter registration and elections for Greenville County, S.C., and the Greenville County Voter Registration and Elections Board.
The legal complaint charges that the defendants are coercing a statement of belief in a monotheistic deity, thereby denying nontheists or those worshiping more than one deity the right to serve as poll workers. Not only is Reel, as an atheist, barred from becoming a poll worker under this policy, but the rights of other South Carolina citizens who have no religious affiliation (16 percent of the South Carolina population), among others, are also injured. Additionally, the defendants are denying Christians who belong to sects that eschew swearing oaths to a deity, such as some Mennonites, Baptists and Quakers, the right to serve as poll workers.
The South Carolina Election Commission’s official policy, as implemented, violates the rights of the plaintiff and countless others under the First Amendment and Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, which bars religious tests for public office, FFRF contends in the complaint filed on Wednesday before the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
In early 2024, Reel phoned the Greenville County voter registration and elections office to ask whether a secular affirmation was available for poll workers in lieu of the religious oath. The office responded that the oath is dictated by statute and that a secular affirmation without “so help me God” would not be accepted.
FFRF sent a letter to the South Carolina Election Commission on Nov. 22 of last year regarding the religious oath required by the statute, noting that Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office.The director at the time of the commission responded, in part, that “the County Boards must require it to be signed before trained candidates are appointed poll workers.”
The legal complaint requests a permanent injunction (a) prohibiting the defendants from requiring citizens who wish to serve as poll workers to swear “so help me God,” and (b) ordering the defendants to provide a secular affirmation that allows citizens to become poll workers without swearing “so help me God.” Reel is also requesting a declaratory judgment that the defendants have violated, and are continuing to violate, the U.S. Constitution by requiring all poll worker candidates to swear “so help me God” without the option of a secular affirmation. Reel also requests an order awarding him the costs of this action, including reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses, as well as an award of nominal damages from the county board.
“Jim Reel, a veteran who wants to continue serving his community as a poll worker, should be congratulated, not barred simply because he is an atheist,” comments FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This legal challenge seeks to put an end to this discriminatory and blatantly unconstitutional practice.”
In 1997, math Professor Herb Silverman won his lawsuit challenging a similarly unconstitutional statute barring atheists in South Carolina from running for public office. Silverman will be speaking about that lawsuit at FFRF’s 48th annual national convention taking place in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Oct. 17–18.
South Carolina attorney Steven Edward Buckingham filed the lawsuit, with FFRF attorneys Sam Grover and Kyle Steinberg acting as co-counsel. The case was filed in the Greenville Division of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization representing more than 42,000 freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and other dissenters from religion), including hundreds of members in South Carolina, that works to protect the separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
