Earlier this year, it appeared that the South Carolina legislature was probably going to make ballot access for independent candidates more difficult. The Senate passed SB 590, to say that primary voters could not sign independent candidate petitions. The bill also made it illegal for newly-registered voters to sign for independent candidates, and said that no one could sign for more than one independent candidate for the same office. But the bill did lower the number of signatures.

The House passed HB 3746, which is worse. It has all the undesirable characteristics of the Senate bill, and it does not reduce the number of signatures.

Both bills passed in February. Since then, neither bill has made any headway. The legislature will probably be in session until June. South Carolina legislators seem to have a tendency to almost pass bad ballot access bills, and then generally the legislature loses interest in them and they never pass entirely. A few years ago a bill to outlaw fusion made substantial progress, but never passed. And before that, a bill to require independent candidates to pay a filing fee in addition to submitting a difficult petition also made substantial headway, but was then abandoned.

South Carolina ballot access for independent candidates for district office is already very difficult. No one has ever qualified as an independent candidate for U.S. House, in the entire history of government-printed ballots in that state. Nor has there ever been an independent candidate on a government-printed ballot for Governor or U.S. Senator.