Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Desertdog on June 18, 2010, 12:33:08 AM
-
As far as I know, Alvin Greene won the election, fair and square. The Democrat selection lost but the Dems don't care. They want their selectee to run in the November election and so they will do whatever they can to make it happen, no matter how lawful it is.
S.C. Democratic Party Considers Overturning Alvin Greene Election Results
FOXNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/17/sc-democratic-party-considers-overturning-alvin-greene-election-results/
Alvin Greene said he has no plans to attend a meeting Thursday of party leaders deciding whether to overturn the primary election result that named him the South Carolina Democratic Senate nominee to challenge Sen. Jim DeMint in November.
In a brief phone interview with FoxNews.com, Greene said he was not attending the state party's executive committee meeting in Columbia to hear a protest by former state lawmaker Vic Rawl, whom he defeated in the June 8 primary.
South Carolina's Democrats are poised to decide the fate of the election in which Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed military veteran, shocked local officials by winning without raising funds, giving any speeches or holding any rallies.
Rawl has asked the state Democratic Party for a new primary election based on flaws with the voting machines or software. In his protest, he cited voting irregularities including people who tried to vote for Rawl but whose ballots showed Greene's name checked instead.
So far, no evidence of tampering or voting abnormalities has been determined. South Carolina's Board of Elections told FoxNews.com it has no plans to investigate the vote.
Rawl doesn't have to prove malfunctions occurred to get a ruling in his favor, said party executive director Jay Parmley. But the committee must consider the facts carefully because any decision it makes could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
"There is not anything in the law that says anything regarding the burden of proof," Parmley said. But: "It's not like we will say, 'We don't like the candidate,' so we will overturn the election."
The executive committee was expected to make a decision at the end of Thursday's hearing. The group could uphold the election, order a new primary or find that problems were so significant that Rawl should be declared the winner, according to Parmley. State party leaders said they can't remember the committee ever overturning a statewide primary result.
Greene, who managed to win 59 percent of the vote, told FoxNews.com Thursday that he's been in contact with party leaders "a little bit" over the decision, before hanging up the phone.
Bakari Sellers, South Carolina Democratic Party vice chairman, told Fox News on Wednesday, that he met with Greene shortly after his win and urged him to step out of the race. But Bakari said just because he doesn't support Greene's candidacy, he was unlikely to reject his victory.
"I don't think that we have the right to overturn the election," he said. "Unless there is something that comes up between now and tomorrow, when we'll have this protest hearing, I'm not sure that there's any evidence there to overturn the election."
Alluding to a pending felony charge that Greene allegedly showed obscene Internet photos to a 19-year-old college student, Bakari said he thought it would be best if Greene withdrew his candidacy.
"In light of the recent charges, after hearing the outcry of the victim ... whether or not he's innocent or guilty, I felt it necessary that we get this behind us," he said. "Unfortunately that went on deaf ears," Bakari said.
For his part, Greene has said he won the election through "simple, old-fashioned" campaigning that included traveling the state and speaking to voters "wherever I could find them."
But other party members, like South Carolina Democratic Party Communications Director Keina Page, have called Greene's unlikely win "very suspicious." U.S. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., has called Greene a "plant" and has demanded an investigation into his candidacy.
Addressing speculation that he was a "plant," Greene denied the charge, saying no one paid him or approached him about entering the race.
"From day one, they just didn't have confidence in my campaign," he said of state party leaders in an interview last week with FoxNews.com.
Fox News' Carl Cameron and Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report
-
"I don't think that we have the right to overturn the election,"...
A constitutional scholar if I ever heard one.
It's not like this was a close election where a recount would change the outcome.
-
Question:
Are primaries actually state-sponsored elections, or are they private elections of the members of respective political parties, and subject to contractual/private agreements rather than state law?
It creeps me out to hear of ANY political party wanting to overturn an election and declare the loser as the winner.
I would hate to see the same thing happening between "establishment" Republicans and angry folks like me that want to oust McCain. I wouldn't take it well at all.
-
Are primaries actually state-sponsored elections, or are they private elections of the members of respective political parties, and subject to contractual/private agreements rather than state law?
Primaries are state-sponsored elections. Caucuses, amongst other things, can be party elections where representatives are selected or sometimes pay to attend and vote.
-
Wait wait wait wait.
Aren't there laws specifying when and under which circumstances an election can be called off?
And wouldn't politicians have crews of legal advisors that warn them if something they want to do is blatantly illegal?
-
Good, let them set a precedent. I can think of one recent election I'd like to have overturned.
-
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina Democratic Party officials on Thursday upheld a surprising U.S. Senate primary win by an unemployed military veteran, nixing a protest lodged by their favored candidate that could have required a new vote.
The party's executive committee decided there was not enough evidence of impropriety to nullify the June 8 election victory by Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old who lives with his father and waged no visible campaign against a former lawmaker.
Greene did not attend the meeting and nobody spoke on his behalf. Reached afterward by phone, he reiterated one of his few, common public statements about his candidacy.
"I am the best candidate in the U.S. Senate race in South Carolina. Let's stop my opponent from reversing forward progress in the United States and South Carolina," he said.
The move upholds the improbable win by Greene, who raised no money and didn't even have a campaign website. Democratic Party leaders had intensified their scrutiny after The Associated Press reported Greene faces a felony obscenity charge and the candidate stammered through a series of awkward, terse news interviews. Some accused Republicans of having a hand in the election.
Greene will face Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who is considered a heavy favorite.
The party's 92-member executive committee made its decision after experts and voters testified for election loser Vic Rawl that questionable balloting statistics and problems with touch-screen voting machines indicated a corrupted final tally.
However, members of the committee said they hadn't been presented with enough concrete evidence and could not overturn an election, no matter how much they wanted Rawl, a former lawmaker and judge, to win.
"We do the right thing even when it hurts us," state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said before the vote that overwhelmingly went in Greene's favor. "We do the right thing even when by doing the right thing it conflicts with eveything that we feel in our hearts."
Rawl said he would not appeal the decision but did not answer other questions.
Among the questions that have raised suspicions about Greene is that he has failed to fully answer is how he paid the $10,440 filing fee to run for office in March. He has said he saved up his military pay for two years but has refused to show party officials or news outlets bank statements to substantiate that.
-
Upside:
Too funny for words.
Downside:
Now every basement-dweller is going to get delusions of grandeur.
-
Upside:
Too funny for words.
Downside:
Now every basement-dweller is going to get delusions of grandeur.
I'm kicking myself for not getting into a house race. :lol:
Ah well, next Senate race is in two years. Better start getting geared up to do nothing. (Ok, gotta pay filing fee.)
-
"We do the right thing even when it hurts us when we're forced to..."
It needed fixing.
-
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina Democratic Party officials on Thursday upheld a surprising U.S. Senate primary win by an unemployed military veteran, nixing a protest lodged by their favored candidate that could have required a new vote.
The party's executive committee decided there was not enough evidence of impropriety to nullify the June 8 election victory by Alvin Greene,
Just to be clear, there was ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE of fraud - they're just unhappy that voters soundly rejected their guy. (There's a lot of that going around this year - in the GOP as well as the Dems. Good!)
The fact that they were even seriously considering this - brainstorming a way to subvert the election - shows how morally bankrupt and corrupt the S.C. Democratic party is.
If the S.C. GOP doesn't use this as a way to hammer all S.C. Democrats, they well and truly deserve to be labeled "The Stupid Party."
-
Downside:
Now every basement-dweller is going to get delusions of grandeur.
As if they didn't (suffer from|enjoy) them already.
-
The real joke will be if he wins...
-
Among the questions that have raised suspicions about Greene is that he has failed to fully answer is how he paid the $10,440 filing fee to run for office in March. He has said he saved up his military pay for two years but has refused to show party officials or news outlets bank statements to substantiate that.
Isn't it party policy to not disclose secrets, no matter who asks?
-
The fact that they were even seriously considering this - brainstorming a way to subvert the election - shows how morally bankrupt and corrupt the S.C. Democratic party is.
Heck, I'm still wondering if the guy might be a plant; if I had a filing fee to spare, and really wanted to make sure DeMint kept his office, what better way could I help him than to win the opposing primary, eliminating his only serious competitor, and then not really campaign or do anything to improve my image, to make sure I don't win the general election?
I'm not sure what their candidate requirements in SC are, but in the few offices I've seriously looked at here in TX, there was no obligation to actually try to win.
-
Given all the free publicity he's gotten, he might actually win......... >:D :facepalm: [popcorn]
However, members of the committee said they hadn't been presented with enough concrete evidence and could not overturn an election, no matter how much they wanted Rawl, a former lawmaker and judge, to win.
The fact that they would even try, disturbs me......
-
Dontcha know the SC Democrat Machine will ensure that the charges against Green will be pushed to the max and "fast-tracked" to a friendly judge in the hope of discrediting him and forcing him away.
TC