According to CNN Political Ticker, (scroll down about 4 items on CNN’s August 8 page) on August 9, the South Carolina Republican Party will announce that it is moving its presidential primary from February 2 to January 19. That would move the South Carolina Republican primary ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary (which is set for January 29).
It would also move the South Carolina Republican primary ahead of Florida (now set for January 29) and ahead of New Hampshire (now set for January 22).
South Carolina major parties administer their own presidential primaries, although the state reimburses them for the cost. That is why South Carolina presidential primaries for one party are not necessarily on the same day as the other major party’s primary. That is also why the primary dates can be moved around, even when the state legislature is not in session.
I thought that February 5 was the earliest allowable date for a GOP primary “in accordance with Party rules”. At least that’s what it says at the West Virginia GOP site where they give the details of their state convention for Super Tuesday. ( http://www.wvgopconvention.com ). West Virginia claims to now be the only state that will be picking its delegates in a live, all-in-one-place, winner-take-all convention which they expect to conclude by noon so that they can be the first state to announce and get the most media attention.
BTW, when you click on this site, also click on the pdf file of their rules… they are implementing a very smokey-back-room-looking e-vote to determine these delegates. Methinks a lot of WV Republican voters are going to be quite upset when they find out they missed the limited time e-mail only voting enrollment date.
Here’s what John O’Connor, columnist for The State newspaper in South Carolina, says:
“All other [SC] primaries will be held in June. The S.C. presidential primaries are a weird animal this year. The parties are in control of setting the dates, but the Legislature turned over the control — and the cost — to the state Elections Commission, but just for 2008 only. They hoped having the Election Commission run things would avoid Palm Beach County-type problems.”