According to this story, the government of South Carolina probably won’t pay for any presidential primaries in 2012. In any event, the Democratic Party wasn’t planning one, so the story focuses on the Republican Party. The Republican Party says if the state won’t pay for it, the party will. This is why the Republican Party charges a filing fee of $35,000 for presidential candidates.

Ironically, under South Carolina election law, even if the Republican Party pays for its own presidential primary, it is forced to let all registered voters participate in its primary, whether they consider themselves Republicans or not. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.

On June 22, the Prohibition Party national convention nominated Jack Fellure for President, and Toby Davis for Vice-President Fellure is a retired engineer who lives in West Virginia. Davis is a church pastor who lives in Mississippi.

Ever since 1943, the Prohibition Party has followed a policy of nominating its presidential nominee in the odd year before the presidential election. The party is meeting for that purpose June 20-22 in Cullman, Alabama. The presidential nominee will be chosen on June 22. Two individuals are interested in obtaining the nomination, Jim Hedges of Pennsylvania, and Jack Fellure of West Virginia.

The Prohibition Party started its habit of nominating in the year before the election after its 1940 experience in Pennsylvania. In 1937 the state had moved its petition deadline to April of presidential election years. The party submitted a timely petition listing candidates for presidential elector, but the petition didn’t name the party’s presidential nominee, Roger W. Babson, because he hadn’t yet been nominated and the party didn’t know who was going to be its nominee when it submitted the petition. But the state rejected the petition because it hadn’t named the presidential nominee. To avoid this problem in the future, the party began nominating its presidential candidate far earlier in the process.