South Carolina has one of the nation’s most lenient laws on how a party remains on the ballot. A party continues to remain on the ballot if it runs at least one candidate for any partisan office, every four years.
The Labor Party and the Independence Party each have one candidate in South Carolina this year. Neither party had any candidates in 2012, so they each needed to run someone this year to remain ballot-qualified.
The Labor Party is running Harold Geddings III for U.S. House, 2nd district. See here for information on his campaign. The Labor Party petitioned for ballot status in 2006, but did not run its first candidate until 2010, when it ran Brett Bursey for State House, 69th district. He got 3.06% in a race against both major parties. The South Carolina Labor Party is the only state unit of the Labor Party formed in 1996 that ever obtained a place on the ballot. The national Labor Party was founded by Tony Mazzocchi, a prominent labor leader. Unlike the Working Families Party, the Labor Party has never supported Democratic nominees.
The Independence Party is running Tony Boyce for State House, district 25. See here for more about his campaign. In 2012 he tried to be a Democratic nominee for State Legislature, but was kept off the primary ballot, along with dozens of other major party members, due to a very confusing campaign finance requirement. Boyce is in a two-person race against a Democrat. The Independence Party of South Carolina, along with the Independence Party of New York city, are the only remaining ballot-qualified parties in the U.S. still controlled by leaders of the old New Alliance Party of Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman. The Independence Party of South Carolina has intervened in the pending lawsuit over whether the Republican Party of Greenville County may have a closed primary for itself. The Independence Party intervened against the Republican Party and on the side of state law.
Also in SC news, independent gubernatorial candidate Tom Ervin recently polled 18% in against the GOP and Dem candidates (who also ran in 2010).
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20140908/articles/140909633
An Oct 1 poll showing all 5 SC gubernatorial candidates.
http://www.thestate.com/2014/10/01/3718265/elections-2014-higher-turnout.html?sp=/99/205/&ihp=1
I can understand why Tom Ervin is polling 18% if the article linked with Scott West’s reply is correct. It claims that Ervin has spent some $4 million dollars toward the campaign.
With that kind of expenditures, he ought to be polling the 18% if not higher.
This only proves what I stated in another reply. The voters have to KNOW something about a 3rd party or Independent candidate before they will support such candidate in sufficient numbers. Obviously, Ervin has made himself known, even if the overwhelming number of voters do not support him at this point.
Perhaps if he could spend another $4 million by election day, he might poll another 18% of the vote. Should such a scenario occur, this would give him 36% of the vote, which would put him in striking distance of a victory. Would depend on how the remaining votes were divided among the other candidates on the ballot.
As we all know, MONEY is the mother’s milk of politics – whether Democrat, Republican, 3rd party or Independent.