Problem is Jake Knotts
During a town hall meeting in Mauldin conducted by S.C. Governor Nikki Haley on September 27, 2012, moderator Jim Lee of the Palmetto Conservatives opened up questions on the topic of the “ballot fiasco” presently going on in this election cycle.
“”We had a little problem with the ballots this time around, and a lot of candidates got thrown off the ballot. I’m curious, what do you think specifically needs to be done in order to correct that problem to make sure the process is transparent, accountable, reliable, and so that people don’t have to require an attorney to become a candidate on a ballot, and we don’t have this nonsense of the courts getting involved in party primaries,” asked Lee.
Haley said, “Well, first, I will tell you that I do believe this is the year of the petition candidate. When years passed, we never thought petition candidates mattered, they matter this year. And they should. It is absolutely embarrassing to all of us that 200 people were kicked off the ballot.”
Continuing on the topic that has upset her, Haley informed we should never exclude anyone to run, and for those that do want to run, they should be helped and welcomed. Haley said that she believes that candidates should not have to go through different hurdles than incumbents, and they should all have to file the same.
“Those 200 candidates, it’s not because they didn’t know what they were doing. They did exactly what they were told to do,” said Haley.
She further explained that the problem boiled down to one Senator.
“The legislator could have fixed it, the house wanted to fix it. It came down to the Senate. It came down to one Senator. 200 people were kicked off the ballot because of one senator from Lexington County named Jake Knotts.”
Even though Haley believes Knotts is the core of the problem surrounding the fiasco, the responsibility doesn’t rest solely on him. Haley believes that the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the senate as a whole.
“He was allowed to stop it, but every senator is responsible because they should have sat him down and fixed it. That is the one thing that I will tell you, but because off that, we need to sit him down and fix him.”
The Governor has taken steps to ensure situations like this don’t rise again. At the end of August she introduced an ethics reform package that she had started as a legislator.
With so many candidates having to enter the ballot through petitions, the Governor warns of voting straight party ticket.
“We need to let everybody know that this is not the year that you pull the lever for ‘R’ or ‘D’. You really need to look at these names, you really need to decide who these people are. In many instances these are really good people that are running that deserve the right to be looked at,” said Haley.
The Governor understands that it’s not going to be easy, and it will take a lot of hard work to educate people that petition candidate is not a bad word. She informed that as the election nears she will help in the education efforts.
Haley’s suggestions for helping these candidates are to give them forums to speak in to allow them consideration to inform the public that there are petition candidates out there.
The lawsuits and obstacles that candidates have gone through this year create fear for the future. She doesn’t want to see candidates next time showing up with lawyers to make sure that they are getting their paperwork right. The bigger fear she has is that people just won’t try at all.
“So, we have to make sure that this is the year of the petition candidate. Not necessarily that all petition candidates deserve to win, but all petition candidates deserve the time and the effort to go and look to see what their platform is because in a lot of these districts we have some good candidates there,” said Haley.
