South Carolina held special legislative elections on December 23. See the results here.
In the State Senate 12th district, the only name on the ballot was the Republican nominee, but 32.63% of the votes were cast for a write-in. The state did not provide a breakdown of who received the write-in votes. South Carolina does not have a write-in declaration of candidacy procedure. In November 24 there had been both a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot, and the Democrat had received 35.84% of the vote.
In the House 21st district, the only name on the ballot was the Republican nominee, but 29.66% of the votes went to write-in candidates. In November 2024 there had also only been a Republican on the ballot, but 2024 write-ins only amounted to 1.72% of the vote.
In the House 88th district, in the special election there were Republican and Democratic nominees. The Republican received 62.32% of the vote. In November 2024 there had only been a Republican on the ballot.
These three special elections were held two days before Christmas. Only 11% of the registered voters participated in these three elections.
Should an office remain vacant if 50% + 1 of registered voters do not vote?
Ballot access laws suppress candidate and voter participation as they are designed to do.
Candidate/incumbent replacement lists for legislative offices =
no more low turnout special elections
South Carolina special elections have a primary and contingent runoff. Apparently no Democrat candidates filed in very red SR-21 and SS-12 districts in the Greenville-Spartanburg area. The SR-21 vacancy was triggered by the incumbent representative resigning to run for the senate seat (he later withdrew).
There were Democratic write-in candidates in SR-21 and SS-12 with active websites promoted by the SC Democratic Party including an explanation of how to write-in a candidate. South Carolina uses a touch-screen system that prints a paper ballot. The ballot is then deposited in a vote scanning machine, and the paper ballot is available for a manual recount. A voter must select the write-in choice and then type in the name of their choice.
Since there is a digital record of the “write-in” votes, it is feasible to count write-in votes easily and quickly even accounting for possible misspellings.
South Carolina has straight ticket voting, at least for general elections. Most voters in November of 2024 were interested in the presidential race and perhaps congressional races. At least some of the votes for the unopposed Republican candidates were straight-ticket votes. A Democratic voter who encountered an unopposed Republican, might type in some random name such as “Alvin Greene”.
A Democratic voter might have been informed that they had skipped the race, depending on how the voting machine was programmed. In 2024, 1.46% of voters typed in a name in the SR-21 race where a Republican was facing ______________. In SS-12 where a Republican and Democrat were facing _____________, only 0.12% bothered to type in something else.
In SR-88, the incumbent was removed from office after being convicted of child pornography. He currently is incarcerated in prison waiting sentencing which may be a lifetime sentence without parole. There was a Democratic candidate in this race and only one (1, 0.04%) write-in vote. In the November 2024 election, the Republican was unopposed and there were 7.82% write-in votes. There had been an August 2024 raid of his home, but the reason for that raid might not have been widely known. He was not indicted until the summer of 2025.
@DFR,
In one of the earliest post-Soviet Hungarian elections there was a quorum requirement and several seats went vacant as repeated special elections failed to achieve a quorum.
Perhaps all legislative seats can be vacant by default. If people wanted to have a representative they could contribute to the cost of the election (or volunteer their services as election judges and clerks). Once elected, the representative could serve until voters indicated they wanted to have a new election.
In South Carolina the filing fee for Republican and Democratic candidates is modest ($208 for representative, $416 for senator). The reason that there were no Democratic candidates is that none filed. The Republican special primaries were contested such that runoffs were needed. It is not clear what the requirement for convention candidates is, other than there is no filing fee.
@az,
In SR-88, the incumbent has been convicted of a felony and removed from office. He could not vote for his successor. Should he be able to appoint his successor under your scheme?
What about when John Conyers resigned? Should he have been able to appoint his son rather than have a special election which chose Demo Rep Jones?
Thomas “Demo Rep” Jones passed away from some combination of old age, drug overdose, corona virus, and unknown causes at a party at Apartment #5 at the clothing optional Totsep Beach Resort in Puerto Rico on New year’s eve 4 years ago. Rest in peace.
People who were at the party described megadosing with brown acid left over from Woodstock 1969 (apparently when festival goers were cautioned from the stage not to eat the brown acid, Jones cornered the market), a geriatric orgy, Tony Montana sized piles of cocaine and ecstasy everywhere, people playing Russian Roulette, ritual partial birth abortions, electroshock play, duels, and all other manner of extreme debauchery – even organ harvesting!
The AZ 666 spambot isn’t eligible for candidacy since it’s a computer program.
JR
MSC part-
Sec. 5. (1) All legislative body candidates and members shall file 1 or more rank order lists of persons to fill any temporary or permanent vacancy of the candidate or member during an election time or term respectively.
(2) The qualified person who is highest on the list shall fill the vacancy.
(3) If (1-2) does not happen, then the other candidates of his/her party (if any), the other members of his/her party (if any) or the legislative body shall fill such vacancy with a qualified person of the same party immediately at its next meeting, as the case may be.
@AZ,
What body would produce the Model State Constitution? Why would that body adopt your particular proposal?
When you presented your proposal, how would you address questions about John Conyers, Jr. or the convicted felon in South Carolina?
This whole idea of avoiding special elections is inconsistent with denial of write-in voting somehow being a violation of the 14th Amendment.
legis bodies must be at 100 pct full to deal with execs/judics and foreign regimes at all times
see now olde Accidental Prez tv drama series — killers/tyrants blow up Congress bldg – kill most of usa govt top officers
If I was to run for office, it’s because there’s no lesser evil among the people I’d be running against; just different kinds of evil that either add up to being equal or where telling which is worse isn’t possible. It would be stupid and wrong to require me to rank my opponents in order to be able to run. And it would be crazy and unrealistic to expect average voters to. Most people would just not vote because it would be way too complicated and most would be candidates wouldn’t run for the same reason.
Then there’s all the games with bullet voting and vote counting fraud due to the added complexity. No thanks. Terrible idea.