On May 27, the South Carolina Senate passed H. 3746, which makes it more difficult for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. The bill must now return to the House because it was amended in the Senate. The South Carolina legislature adjourns in two weeks.
H. 3746 requires an independent candidate to file a declaration no later than primary day in June. Currently, independents can wait until after the June primary to decide whether to petition or not. The bill requires each petition sheet to be notarized, and says that no notary public may sign the petition if he or she notarized any petition sheet for that same candidate. The bill says no one may circulate an independent petition earlier than six months before the deadline. The bill does not permit anyone to sign unless that person had been a registered voter at least thirty days before the petition is submitted.
Current law not only doesn’t require petitions to be notarized, it doesn’t even require the circulator to sign the petition or otherwise identify himself or herself. That makes it possible for a petition to be posted on a bulletin board or some other public place, where anyone can sign in the absence of any circulator.
The Senate Judiciary Committee version of the bill had said no one may sign if that person voted in a primary, and the Senate Judiciary Committee version also lowered the number of signatures. However, the Senate itself took those two amendments out of the bill. The Committee had lowered the statewide petition from 10,000 to 4,000, and had lowered the number of signatures from 5% of the number of registered voters, to 3%.
South Carolina requirements for independent candidates are already so difficult, no one has ever qualified as an independent candidate for either House of Congress, nor for Governor. Why the legislature wants to make it still more difficult is a mystery. The South Carolina newspapers have not publicized this bill.
