Critics say it will force voters to go with political parties
By Jim Davenport
The Associated Press

South Carolina’s Democrats and Republicans are working together to limit petition candidate challenges to their nominees, raising the concerns of a voting rights advocate Monday about whether the party efforts will hurt voters’ ability to put candidates of their choosing on the ballot.

Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, introduced a bill last week that would force petition candidates to file at the same time party hopefuls do. The measure also would bar those who vote in primaries from signing petitions to get independent candidates on the ballot.

“From our perspective, that voter has already participated in that nominating process,” said Jay W. Ragley, the South Carolina Republican Party’s executive director. “A voter who votes in a primary and then signs a petition is essentially given two bites at the apple to nominate someone for office.”

In a state with an open primary system, the move will force voters more than ever to go along with political parties, observers said.

“I just think it’s an unnecessary impediment to an open democratic system and it’s clearly designed to protect the two dominant parties. The notion that if you vote in a primary, you can’t sign a petition for anybody is overly broad,” said [SC Progressive Network Director] Brett Bursey, a voting rights advocate, on Monday. “There’s something about democracy that they’re not quite getting.”

Both major parties are unabashed about the desire to cut post-primary challenges to their nominees. That’s been a problem for both parties in the past. For instance, state Sen. Mike Rose of Summerville knocked off an incumbent in last year’s GOP primary and then faced a petition candidate in the general election backed by a mix of Republicans and Democrats.

“We don’t want to see a wave of people playing spoiler,” Ragley said.

Petition candidates don’t have an easy ride to the ballot. They have to gather 5 percent of the signatures of the voters for that office and that’s capped at 10,000. They have to turn them in by July .
Ragley also notes they don’t have to pay filing fees as party candidates do.
But “it’s really a bigger issue about protecting the Democratic and Republican nominees who have gone through the primary process,” said Jay Parmley, state Democratic Party’s executive director. “Our job also is to protect our brand.”

Under Peeler’s legislation, Rose’s challenger would have had to file candidacy papers with the election officials at the same time candidates file with their parties. People signing his petition would have had to have been registered for at least 30 days. And no one would be able to sign the petition if they had voted in a primary.

The later requirement creates a big problem, said Danielle Vinson, a Furman University political scientist. “It suggests that people are happy with the parties,” she said.

Voters, for instance, may choose not to vote in particular race showing up on the primary ballot because they don’t like their choices. But that person would face the choice of voting in the primary for other candidates or supporting the single petition candidate’s effort to get on the ballot.
“I think that’s problematic,” Vinson said.

Meanwhile, once filing closes and it’s clear that a party hasn’t put up a challenger in a race, the legislation would all but assure that voters see only that unopposed candidate’s name on the ballot. Even Democrats have responded to that in past by putting up petition candidates, Parmley said.
“It certainly can be used as a fail-safe mechanism,” he said.

But it falls far short of any effort to close the primary, Parmley said. “The primary system is still as open as it ever was.”

It’s a step, too far, toward protecting parties, said Bursey. “It’s really clear that the majority party doesn’t want more people voting,” Bursey said of the GOP. He also said Democrats also appeared to be trying to protect their candidates.

“Somebody needs to remind these people that the two-party system is not built into our laws.”