On September 18, a U.S. District Court in South Carolina refused to put Eugene Platt on the ballot for state house, as the Green Party nominee. South Carolina permits fusion. However, the law says that if a candidate seeks the nomination of two different parties, he or she must win both of them, or will be unable to accept either party nomination. Eugene Platt won the Green Party nomination in April. Then he tried for the Democratic nomination, but he lost the June primary. Now he can’t run at all. This is a serious blow to the South Carolina Green Party. Platt is a local office-holder and some believed that he could have won the state legislative race.
It is peculiar that a state which permits fusion, would at the same time have a rule that says if a candidates tries to get the nomination of two parties, that candidate must win both, or can’t run at all. One doubts that Platt would be off the ballot if he had first won the Democratic nomination, and then tried and failed to get the Green Party nomination. Thanks to David Gillespie for this news.
Part of the irony of this is that a candidate nominated under a fusion system by both the Green Party and Democratic Party would likely be disowned by most Greens. Fusion is generally not thought highly of within the Green Party, and fusion with one of the corporate parties would be even more widely disdained.
I’m in Platt’s district.
The rule is against running in the government operated primary, losing, and then running in the general election.
The Presidential preference primaries are run by the parties. But the regular primararies are run by the state. Parties can choose to use the primaries or not. If a Party chooses to use the primary, then all candidates must pay a hefty filing fee, collected by the state to finance primaries.
If a party instead chooses to nominate by convention, then there is no state-mandated filing fee. If the party has ballot access, the candidates they choose in convention are put on the ballot.
As far as I know, there is no rule against seeking the nomination of multiple parties in convention, losing in one, but appearing on the ballot for those whose conventions are won.
Of course, the “rule” really focuses on candidates who lose the primary in June, and then collect signatures for an independent run (usually due in August) or even promote a write-in.