This article says some South Carolina major party members plan to petition as independent candidates, if they cannot obtain any relief from the primary ballot access problem mentioned in earlier posts.
This article says some South Carolina major party members plan to petition as independent candidates, if they cannot obtain any relief from the primary ballot access problem mentioned in earlier posts.
While I have mixed feelings requiring candidates to reveal their personal financial status in order to become a candidate, I hope these candidate do eventually run as independents and win.
This happened in Alabama a couple of decades ago when in a court ordered special election, the Democratic party leaders decided to “handpick” the nominees instead of holding primary elections – leaving many incumbents out in the cold. There were about a dozen of them if I recall, and they all ran as independents in the general election. Most of them won – defeating the handpicked nominee of their party leadership.
Maybe that will happen in South Carolina and give continued credence to the notion that independents can run and win. Anything that will help shake up the dominating “two party system” I am for it.
Longer article from today Columbia’s The State paper on the fiasco:
http://www.thestate.com/2012/05/06/2265133/supreme-courts-ruling-on-filing.html
The article says that smaller parties do not have to comply with the ruling. Possibly. There will probably be legislative relief this week, though.
south crolina is corrupt, justice system, police, courts etc
#2 Thanks for the article. It clears up the recent change.
South Caroline Code of Laws Section 8-13-365.
“(A) The [ethics] commission shall establish a system of electronic filing for all disclosures and reports required pursuant to Chapter 13, Title 8 and Chapter 17, Title 2 from all persons and entities subject to its jurisdiction….”
There are also requirements that filings made to the ethics committees (for legislative candidates) be in an electronic format suitable for forwarding to ethics commission.
This implies that the copy sent from the party official to the ethics commission/committees must be in an electronic format, and the version from the candidate to party official be in an electronic format.
A photocopy (or other facsimile) of a paper form sent to the ethics commission would appear to violate the 2010 law – and that the 1991 and 2010 laws are not reconcilable in the way that the Supreme Court has claimed that they are.
It would be interesting to see how South Carolina represented the 2010 change to the USDOJ in their Section 5 submission.
I would interpret 8-13-1356 as applying to all parties, since convention-nominated candidates also need a declaration of candidacy. The current suit was filed against the political parties and the state election officials to keep the candidates off the primary ballot. But presumably, there could be similar challenges to other candidates appearing on the general election ballot.