On March 17, the Greenville County, South Carolina, Republican Party lost its lawsuit over South Carolina’s open primary. The Fourth Circuit decision, Greenville County Republican Party Executive Committee v Greenville County Election Commission, 13-2170, is 28 pages.
The lawsuit had been filed in 2010 by the county Republican Party and also the state Republican Party. It challenged state law that requires all parties that nominate by primary to use an open primary, in which any registered voter can participate. The party wanted to exclude voters who are loyal to other political parties. One weakness in the case from the beginning is that South Carolina lets parties nominate by convention instead of open primary if they wish. However, a state law said that if a party wants to switch from an open primary to a convention, the resolution authorizing the change must be made by a vote of three-fourths of all the delegates at the state convention. Delegates who didn’t vote because they weren’t in the room at the time, or had gone home, were automatically deemed to have voted “no.” Therefore, the lawsuit also challenged the three-fourths law.
In 2014, the South Carolina state party withdrew from the lawsuit. The Fourth Circuit opinion says that the Greenville County Republican Party doesn’t have standing to challenge the three-fourths law, or the state law on open primaries. In another blow to the lawsuit, in 2014 Greenville city (which is in Greenville County) switched from having partisan elections to non-partisan city elections. Therefore, the remaining strong complaint by the county party, that it was being forced to pay administrative costs to hold a city primary, was made moot. The county party argued that the city might at any time switch back to having partisan elections, but the Fourth Circuit felt this is unlikely. The Court appears not to have known that an initiative petition has been filed by some Greenville voters, and the petition has enough valid signatures, so the city will soon be voting on whether to reinstate partisan city elections. See this story.
PUBLIC nominations for PUBLIC officers by PUBLIC Electors —
according to PUBLIC laws.
ALL Electors nominating — i.e.top 2 primary areas.
SOME Electors [Factions] nominating — with or without other factions.
How long before the courts have ruled on EVERYTHING connected with elections ???
i.e. ALL Court cases Election stuff — A to Z.
i.e. AUTOMATIC results regarding any new complaints based on prior JUNK cases.
How many thousands of feet (and TONS of paper) of ONLY election law cases in force in law libraries — USA, State and local cases ???
—
NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Bit more – The Elephant State Party becomes a part of the NC State regime regarding the primary stuff.
See the Texas White Primary cases circa 1928-1932 — State Action stuff in the election proccess.
Sorry – the robot party hacks in each party are NOT independent empires doing whatever regarding ballot access —
i.e. still some attempt to have a government of LAWS and not arbitrary robot party hack LAWLESS stuff.
I wonder why if I’m being forced to pay for these primaries with my tax dollars,but I’m not allowed to vote in those primaries. Should political parties pay for the cost of these primaries?
The Republican Party has to pay to administer its primaries for city office in South Carolina. Taxpayers are not paying.
In most States the taxpayers are paying for the robot party hacks having primaries for the various PUBLIC offices.
Some hack States also have State and local ballot questions on such primary ballots– i.e. LOW turnouts to benefit the usual suspect special interest gangsters.
NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Richard – you are correct. The party (the county party) pays for, staffs, and administers municipal primaries.
The delegates not voting or leaving the room is slightly different focus. The challenge to the 3/4 was more that the supermajority requirement is a state dictate not applied to other organizations.
David – there’s a lot of us who agree the party should pay its own way. Until 2008, the party did, and this issue has been litigated by some counties, unfortunately, the SC Supreme Court ruled the government should pay.