On March 15, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed HB 4977. It changes Lieutenant Governor elections. Old law provided for a separate election for that office. The new law says Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected as a team in the general election. There will be no more primaries for Lieutenant Governor; gubernatorial nominees choose their own running mate.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Can the words in the law be quoted here verbatim please?
How can the two posts be described as being elected as a team when one person is elected and one is picked?
That’s not fair to the voters or the candidates for Lt. Gov. because the two are not given equal treatment.
You can call anything a team and it can have different meanings.
The election is the contest but the rules don’t apply as a team because in games with rules, the rules apply equally to all players and that isn’t the case when one person is elected by the voters and he other is picked by some biased party bosses.
This is a bad law. James Ogle’s comments here are (surprisingly, for once) well put. If Gov/Ltandidates are to run as a team, then the “team” should be a primary election “ticket” so primary voters could know who they are. The LtGov candidate selected by the winning Gov candidate could very well have changed a primary election voter’s preference/vote for the Gov candidate (positively or negatively). Yes, it can be argued that this law is no different from the practice in Presidential elections where Presidential nominees choose their VP running mates but that is not necessarily good.
If you want team psychology then you may be interested in pure proportional representation (PPR).
That’s where the threshold is 33.33% (plus one vote) elects each of the two, with a guaranteed voter satisfaction level of 66.66% (plus two votes) and where the best team players can earn votes to win.
That’s the team psychology where the whole is the team, thinking, voting and electing as a team, one person picking the 2nd one under pluralism isn’t teamwork. You can call it teamwork but you’re leaving out the districts voters so the two are not elected by the team.
One person picked the Lt. Gov., there was no election, so Lt. Gov. wasn’t elected by a team.
One Gov. candidate is not a team, and that one person picks, so this isn’t a case where the two are chosen by a team. Just because the article wants you to think it was teamwork, it was not a team who determined the candidates.
It’s no different from any single-winner system where one person is better than everyone and only they pick the Lt. Gov.
Nikki Haley’s first Lieutenant Governor was forced to resign because of campaign violations. The current Governor, Henry McMaster, was elected in 2014, and succeeded when Haley was appointed UN Ambassador. While he had the support of Haley, he had to win a four-way race to become Lieutenant Governor and then defeat a Democrat opponent in the general election.
The Senator Pro Tempore became Lieutenant Governor, when McMaster became governor. McMaster is running for election to a full term in 2018, and has indicated that he won’t choose the current Lieutenant Governor.
All nonpartisan executive officers via AppV
Lt Guvs should NOT be in legis bodies (a vestige of the rotted Brit monarchy) —
should be exec dept head — if not guv or acting guv.
The idea of a team goes back to the Prez/Veep ticket. Maybe have the candidate with the most votes become governor and the runnerup becomes lt?
DemoRep is right that approval voting would be a right way to elect single member offices.
Imagine how the Last presidential election would’ve played out with my scenario. The republicans wouldve had trump and Cruz, the democrats wouldve had Hillary and sanders, the libertarians did it right since I think theyre the only party that has a separate election for prez/Veep.
James Ogle is right! Both posts should be picked by the voters. I also think that both candidates should appear running for governor and using the single transferable vote system (STV), where a candidate that gets 33.34% of the vote gets the first seat (gov) and then the following candidate that gets the same threshold gets the second seat (lt-gov). Matter of fact, I would love to see a state implement this system!
If South carolina wanted real reform, they could’ve done better.
1) parties can nominate a candidate for both posts
2) both candidates would run against each other and candidates from other parties/independents (like open list proportional representation in a 2-seat district)
3) since two posts are at stake, this would be like a 2-member single transferable vote election
4) 33.34% to get elected
And may I also add that this could also apply for our presidential elections as well? Imagine having electors for both the presidential and vicepresidential nominees and they would compete against each other? Just a thought!