On January 28, the South Carolina Senate passed SB 590, after amending it in committee. The bill makes ballot access changes for independent candidates. Some of the changes are beneficial and some are restrictive.
The bill lowers the number of signatures for a statewide independent, and for a U.S. House independent, from 10,000 signatures to 4,000. For state legislature and county office, the petition would be lowered from 5% of the registered voters to 3%.
On the other hand, the bill imposes a primary screen-out. If anyone signs the petition and then votes in a primary that same year, the signature is void.
Also, the bill says that signatures may not be collected more than six months before the petition deadline. The petition deadline remains July 15. Also, the bill says that no one may sign for more than one independent candidate. And, the bill says independent candidates must file a declaration of candidacy no later than primary day. Finally, the bill says that no one may sign an independent candidate’s petition unless he or she had been registered for at least 30 days.
Parts of the bill would be held unconstitutional. In 1970 the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a 3-judge U.S. District Court opinion that said that it is unconstitutional to restrict newly-registered voters from signing a petition. Also, the part of the bill that requires an independent candidate to file a declaration of candidacy by the primary date would not be constitutional as applied to independent presidential candidates. South Carolina presidential primaries are very early, and in 2008 were in January. Anderson v Celebrezze, a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision, said state laws requiring independent presidential candidates to declare earlier than the summer of a presidential election year are unconstitutional.
The bill now goes to the South Carolina House.
How many UNEQUAL ways have the party hacks dreamed up to make it more and more impossible for there to be ANY opposition to the incumbents in the various regimes ???
I.E. Is the U.S.A. just as rotted NOW as in France 1789 ???
Gee — Things happened in France 1789.
Where are the court cases asking for GIANT $$$ damages to bankrupt the party hacks and election bureaucrats involved in making / enforcing UN-constitutional laws ???
South Carolina treats nomination by petition as nomination by an ad hoc group of voters, and parallel to nomination by organized political parties via convention or primary. This is the same as is used in Texas.
Permitting a voter to vote in a primary and then participate in the nomination of another candidate for the same office would be in violation of the principles expressed in Jones.
South Carolina does not have party registration, so requiring a declaration of candidacy filed before the primary/convention/signature-gathering protects a voter from inadvertently participating in one nomination process, and then later discovering that he may not help nominate a preferred candidate.
If South Carolina would do away with party nomination as the vehicle for gaining access to the ballot at which all voters may participate, they likely would set a much lower qualification standard. This is true in Washington and Louisiana, and as proposed in California.