South Carolina Resident refuses Poll Working's 'So Help Me God' requirement

On October 8, 2025, South Carolina resident James Reel filed a lawsuit against the Greenville County Voter Registration Office for violating his right to freedom of religious expression and the Establishment Clause. Reel sought to become a poll worker for future elections and attempted to complete the training required before the 2024 November election. In December 2023, after completing the required online poll worker training courses, Reel learned about the religious oath required of poll workers. Applicants who complete the training are required to certify an oath prescribed by the statute. The oath includes the statement, “So help me God,” which Reel claimed went against his beliefs as an atheist. He said that he, with his conscience as a non-believer, can’t swear by God. Reel called a representative of the county elections office to request that he be allowed to strike out that part of the oath. However, the representative stated that the oath was dictated by the state’s statute, so a version of the oath without that phrase wouldn’t be valid. Reel tried to offer a secular alternative to the oath, but that also wasn’t accepted.

There’s an implication within S.C. Code § 7-13-72, stating “After their appointment, the managers and clerks must take and subscribe, before any officer authorized to administer oaths, the following oath of office prescribed by Section 26 of Article III of the Constitution: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm)...” An affirmation, unlike an oath, is a vow without referring to a religious deity, but the Interim Executive Director declared that citizens who don’t abide by the oath are ineligible to work as a poll worker and that affirmations/exceptions weren’t an option for future applicants. In response, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, composed of thousands of atheists, agnostics, and other religious dissenters, informed the director that the practice of an oath violated the First Amendment. They claimed that the Constitution bans any religious tests for public offices as "neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion, in correspondence with Torcaso v. Watkins (1961).

In that case, Roy Torcaso was appointed as a notary public for Maryland. However, Maryland’s constitution required a declaration of belief in God, and Torcaso, an atheist, refused, as it went against his beliefs. His appointment was revoked, and Torcaso sued, claiming that his freedom of religious expression had been violated. The Supreme Court found that Maryland’s requirement for a person in office to state a belief in God violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, in 1997, Herb Silverman’s application for notary public in South Carolina was denied when he crossed out the phrase, “So help me God,” and the Supreme Court once again ruled that religious test requirements violate the Constitution.

Although the FFRF argued that the statement is coercive and denies nontheists or polytheists the right to serve as poll workers without believing in a singular deity, the Director held that the policy complies with  S.C. Code § 7-13-72. FFRF also argued that by not allowing an alternative, it’s a violation of the Establishment Clause as it’s a legal statute coercing a statement of belief in a singular God. The lawsuit specified that South Carolina routinely lets attorneys, jurors, and witnesses make secular affirmations as alternatives. Reel specified in his lawsuit that he wanted a permanent injunction that prohibits defendants from requiring citizens to swear to a god and requiring that they offer a secular alternative in the oath.

No ruling has officially been made, but I believe that the court should rule in favor of Reel. There’s already been previous Supreme Court rulings that establish that requiring religious tests is a violation, and while one could argue that needing to swear to God isn’t a religious test, the fact that no secular alternative or exemption is allowed, as well as the director calling that the oath needs to remain as is even though affirmations was included in the policy, I would argue that it is. Additionally, a statute requiring the swearing of God has no compelling state interest, as attorneys and others have been allowed to make secular affirmations already. While the inclusion of the word God has been embedded in things like the Pledge of Allegiance and other Oaths, I believe this issue is denying Reels the ability to make a secular alternative. Other religious groups such as Quakers and Jehovah' s Witnesses have barred swearing, so there’s a neutrality issue in my opinion. And finally, requiring the statement is coercive and compelled speech, as it forces people who might not agree with the swearing to a singular God by putting a job on the line.

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