On May 15, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed HB 3557. It says that candidates nominated in conventions must pay filing fees. The fee is 1% of the office’s salary.
Before the bill passed, only primary candidates needed to pay a filing fee. Fees for convention candidates are not logical. The purpose of filing fees is to keep ballots uncrowded. However, when a party nominates by convention, there is no problem with crowded primary ballots.
South Carolina still does not require independent candidates to pay a filing fee.
So a party can simply “endorse” an “independent” candidate in convention>?
Yes, but the South Carolina petition requirements for independent candidates are extremely severe. They need 10,000 signatures, whether running for statewide office or US House. No one has ever petitioned as an independent in South Carolina for US House, nor for Governor, nor for US Senator. Legislative independents need 5% of the number of registered voters, so there aren’t many independent candidates for legislature either.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/someone-marking-huge-8647-grounds-162636176.html
who done it ???
ANTS ??? outer space aliens ??? grasshoppers ??? birds ??? Tyrant Trump at 3 AM ??? CIA CODE BREAKERS ???
I don’t think it does this. It is confusing. The section that says filing fees be paid for candidates for both primaries and convention nomination is already in the code: 7-11-15(A), but the filing period has been shortened by five days.
Some of the sections say that filing is with the state election authorities, but others say that the filing fees are made payable to the political party. Another section of the new law says that the political parties must transmit the fees to the state for use in paying for elections.
Some time in the past, filing switched from being with the political parties to being with the state.
There appears to be an optional “certification fee” of $100 that political parties may assess and is payable to the party.
South Carolina has some of the most inscrutable election code of any state. I think when they were under VRA Preclearance they did not bother updating the laws because they would have to prove to the DOJ that they were not a witch, and they didn’t want to jump in the river to prove that they would sink. It appears that the new legislation is like you had an overgrown lot and they used a bush hog to clear it somewhat, but it will take some more trimming to make it an actual lawn.