Another candidate has been taken off the ballot in Union County as a result of a ruling by the State Supreme Court.
Union County Republican Party Chairman Mike Fowler announced Friday that Randall English, the GOP candidate for SC House District 42 has been taken off the ballot by the party. Fowler said he was instructed by the State Republican Party to remove English from the ballot in light of the court’s ruling that candidates must provide their parties with a paper copy of their statement of economic interest regardless of whether they have filed it electronically.
Initially, English was unaffected by the court’s ruling because his information was already on file from a previous run for public office. However, Fowler said he was told by the state party that because English did not provide him with a paper copy of his statement of economic interest at the same time he filed it electronically to run this year he was not in compliance with the court’s ruling and therefore had to be removed from the ballot.
English becomes the third Republican and the 10th candidate in Union County to be removed from the ballot in the June 12 primary and/or the November general election. The other Republicans removed from the ballot were Union County Sheriff’s candidate Marshal Adams and Union County Council District 3 candidate Ronda Adams-Palmer. Of the four Republicans originally running in Union County, only Union County Clerk of Court Freddie Gault remains on the November ballot.
The Democrats removed from the ballot include sheriff’s candidate William Jolly; clerk of court candidate Melanie Lawson; District 3 candidate Chrystal Coffer; District 2 candidates Curtiss Hunter, Frank Hart, and Ralph Tucker; and District 6 candidate Ray Treadway. Democrats still on the ballot include Sheriff David Taylor, District 3 Union County Councilman Tommy Ford, and District 6 Union County Council member Kacie Petrie. In Union County Council District 5, incumbent Randall “Chump” Hanvey and challenger John Rampey are in the only contested Democratic race in Tuesday’s primary. The only other Democrat still on the ballot is SC House District 42 Rep. Mike Anthony who Randall would have opposed in November.
The only option for candidates removed from the ballot by their parties in response to the court’s ruling is to run as petition candidates in November. To date, Adams, Adams-Palmer, Jolly, Lawson, Coffer, Hunter, and Tucker have announced that the will run as petition candidates for the offices they’d planned to run for as the nominees of their respective parties.
English could not be reached Friday about whether or not he would seek to run as a petition candidate.
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