The South Carolina bill to ban fusion, HB 3067, is still pending in a Senate Subcommittee (it had passed the House in February). However, it has been amended to also ban the straight-ticket device. Thanks to Scott West for this news.
The South Carolina bill to ban fusion, HB 3067, is still pending in a Senate Subcommittee (it had passed the House in February). However, it has been amended to also ban the straight-ticket device. Thanks to Scott West for this news.
Good to make something good out of something bad.
As a South Carolinian, I can tell you that while this bill is stupid, it won’t make much difference, as nearly everyone votes Republican or Democrat anyway, even with fusion (i.e., Obama was the Democrat Party and the United Citizens Party nominee, but everybody pretty much just chose “Democrat.”).
Actually Obama wasn’t the Working Families Party nominee in South Carolina. The Working Families Party wanted to cross-endorse him in South Carolina and in all states in which the party is on the ballot and in which fusion is legal. But the Obama campaign refused to cooperate, except that it did let the New York Working Families Party cross-endorse him.
Actually, the state’s election commission staff ruled that for the votes to be counted together, both, or all, parties would have to submit signed paperwork for all the same electors. In other words, if Obama had been on the ballot as the WFP or UCP lines in addition to the Democratic line, Congressmen Clyburn and Spratt would have had to sign paperwork from those parties, something I feel sure no high level Democrat in this state would have done.
This ruling, like the ruling that kept the Green Party nominee for state legislature off the ballot, came directly from staff who despise “that fusion stuff”.
Even though the state legislature has failed repeatedly over the years to change the state’s fusion laws, by a simple decision of unelected staff, the election commission can alter legislative intent, and the courts uphold, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Da fix is in, at least as far as these bureaucrats are concerned.
I am holding my breath that our do-nothing Senate will adjourn having done nothing to pass this anti-fusion abomination. But Gregg is so right. The SC
Election Commission has drained fusion of much of its life in SC anyway.
I would think the anti-straight ticket thing might
help weigh down this bill, making its passage less
likely. Why would the dominant Republicans want to
make it more difficult for voters to vote straight
Republican?
Richard: Would you be willing to make a prediction about fusion this year? Will it be one up (Oregon)
and one down (SC)?