ACLU sues state over election laws

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing South Carolina in federal court, challenging state election rules that prevent a candidate seeking the nomination of more than one political party from appearing on the general election ballot.

One of the clients in the ACLU’s case is Eugene Platt, who was selected as the Green Party candidate for a South Carolina House seat in May. But in June Platt, who as also seeking the Democratic nomination to House District 115, lost in the primary.

The South Carolina Election Commission decided that Platt was ineligible to appear on the November general election ballot under the Green Party banner because he did not gain the Democratic Party’s backing in the primary.

“South Carolina’s election scheme ... makes the outcome of one party’s convention dependent on the outcome of every other party’s nominating process,” said Bryan Sells, an ACLU attorney. “If you’ve got fusion voting, you can’t give the Democratic Party veto power over the Green Party.”

Comments

[Scott West]

Good for the Greens!
Readers who want to read the ACLU's statement on the case can go here:
http://blog.aclu.org/2008/08/07/south-carolinas-loser-voting-law/

[Gregg Jocoy]

With the McClatchy Group owning close to a dozen newspapers in South Carolina, including The State, I can only hope that some of them will pick up this story and run it across the state. While Eugene is from Charleston, he has supporters across the state and the Greens have run candidates in Greenville, Columbia, Fort Mill, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and elsewhere. If this were a Democrat being tossed off the ballot by the Greens I feel sure it would be in every McClatchy newspaper the next day!