Just when you thought the South Carolina primaries couldn't get weirder this year, they have.
As you may or may not be aware, around 200 candidates got kicked off the primary ballots last month because our State's Supreme Court chose to have the audacity to say that the election law as written needed to be followed even if it might not have been what the General Assembly intended, and that the law in this case said that prospective candidates for the primary needed to file an economic interest statement both online with the State Election Commission and hand in a paper copy to their county party.
But another court decision yesterday is stirring trouble even more.
TheState.comWYFF4.comThe first article refers to just the Florence County GOP, but as the second shows, this is affecting other county parties as well.
A few county parties tried not to follow that order and refused to provide a list of those who did not do what the court said the law required So now the court has ordered those county parties to provide a list of those who did do what was required and if they don't, everyone gets thrown off. Not only that, but the county election commissions are required to either get new ballots prepared or if not possible so late, to post signs at each polling place with a list of the stricken candidates and warning voters that ballots cast for them will not be counted. In addition, the county parties which chose to ignore the court's prior order are required to pay the added costs the county election commissions will incur. In the case of Oconee County, the primary has been cancelled, as no contested races remain there. (South Carolina does not allow write-in votes in party primaries.)
