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by WILL FOLKS
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The executive director of South Carolina’s State Election Commission (SCVotes.gov) was fired from his position by a vote of the agency’s governing commissioners on Wednesday (September 17, 2025).
Howard “Howie” Knapp, who had led SCVotes since January of 2022, was reportedly “fired for cause,” however there is no immediate indication as to what prompted his abrupt termination.
Knapp’s firing comes less than a week after the S.C. supreme court ruled his agency must hand over its voter registration database to Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) in compliance with an executive order issued by Trump in March aiming to enhance electoral integrity.
As we noted in our coverage of that ruling, “Democrats – and some election officials – (had) sought to block the release of the data.”
Knapp’s ouster also comes nine months after FITSNews exclusively reported that the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) was investigating “allegations of misconduct” (.pdf) involving Knapp.
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According to a statement from commission chairman Dennis Shedd, a former U.S. district court judge, the board’s decision to fire Knapp was “unrelated to the conduct of any election in South Carolina.”
Instead, it was indicative of “a desire for new leadership.”
“Leadership and staff remain dedicated to ensuring South Carolina’s elections are accurate, secure, and accessible,” Shedd noted.
SCVotes’ chief of staff, Jenny Wooten, was appointed interim executive director effective immediately, per Shedd – a move which bypassed Knapp’s hand-picked deputy executive director, Paige Salonich.
Of interest, Shedd indicated one of Wooten’s first tasks would be initiating an internal investigation into several “managerial” staffers at the agency.
Originally from Brentwood, Tennessee, Knapp attended Billings Central Catholic High School (BSC) before earning his bachelor’s from The Citadel in 2008. After leaving Charleston, S.C., he obtained a juris doctorate from the Ave Maria School of Law (AML) in 2012.
S.C. governor Henry McMaster appoints the five election commissioners, including one who is a member of the “largest minority political party” represented in the S.C. General Assembly, to four-year terms. Those commissioners, in turn, choose an executive director with the “advice and consent” of the S.C. Senate who serves at their pleasure.
This is a developing story… please check back for updates.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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1 comment
The “Help America Vote Act (HAVA)” and the “National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)” do not contain any clause that provides federal access to state voter rolls, nor does the Constitution. How states conduct elections are controlled by the states. What the federal government is asking for are: names, addresses, birth dates, and last four digits of the Social Security Number.
With a history of ignoring privacy laws, a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uploaded the Social Security database to an unsecured cloud storage. If a criminal hacker gains access to that database, New numbers will have to be issued. Given how pervasive the use of SSN is used, notifying banks, brokerages, health care providers will be a time consuming headache for citizens. When Nikki Haley was governor, hackers got access to four million accounts from SC Department of Revenue