This article says that the South Carolina Election Commission’s spokesperson Chris Whitmire believes there is no likelihood that the Election Commission will remove James Smith, the Democratic nominee for Governor, from the November ballot.

First, the Libertarian Party state convention didn’t reject him; only the party state committee rejected him. Second, the Libertarian Party doesn’t have its own nominee for Governor.

So, although South Carolina law continues to say that someone who seeks the nomination of two parties, yet fails to capture both nominations, can’t be any party’s nominee, a little bit of wiggle room has now been introduced into the system. Thanks to Dave Gillespie for the link.

According to this article, the South Carolina Libertarian Party will file a challenge to the general election ballot position of James Smith, who won the Democratic primary in June for Governor. South Carolina law says that if a candidate seeks the nomination of two or more parties, and any party rejects him or her, then the candidate cannot be the nominee of any party. See this story.

Probably the South Carolina Libertarian Party wants to lose this challenge. Losing the challenge would establish a favorable precedent, and demonstrate that the law is unclear, impractical, and senseless. No other of the ten fusion states has a similar law. The ten states that permit fusion in some circumstances are Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Vermont. States that have had fusion in the past 25 years, but no longer have it, are Arkansas, California, Delaware, South Dakota, and Utah. None of those states had a South Carolina-type restriction either.

On August 4, the New Mexico Libertarian Party chose Gary Johnson as its nominee for U.S. Senate, to replace Aubrey Dunn, who withdrew recently. Johnson must decide by August 18 whether to accept the nomination. See this story.