SC GOP stops Upstate Republicans from throwing out local primary election result

The South Carolina Republican Party has overruled a local party committee that had voted not to recognize the results of a county primary election.

The state GOP’s executive committee voted Thursday to reverse a decision by the Greenville County Republican Party not to certify the results of a June 14 primary race for Greenville County Council, where incumbent Councilman Joe Dill lost by 132 votes to Joey Russo.

“The Committee determined there was no credible evidence that could have quantifiably changed the outcome of the primary, and therefore Greenville County’s original acceptance of the protest is thrown out,” state partyChairman Drew McKissick said in a statement after vote. “No new primary election will take place. Period.”

The county’s executive committee voted to overturn the primary result June 23, after Dill filed a protest of the result.

Several people testified at a committee hearing that they had experienced problems with voting machines recording their votes and questioning whether the final results were accurate, the Greenville News reported. Dill told the committee he had asked the S.C. Election Commission, the state agency that oversees elections, to overturn his primary loss but was rebuffed.

Thursday’s decision by the state Republican Party means Russo, not Dill, will be the GOP’s nominee for the county council seat in November’s general election, although the Greenville News reported Dill called the party’s decision “illegal” and may seek further legal action challenging his loss.

Dill was not the only Republican to call the primary election results into question.

South Carolina Republican leaders had previously rejected the protests of defeated candidate for governor Harrison Musselwhite and attorney general candidate Lauren Martel, both of whom lost by more than 100,000 votes to incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson, with both claiming without substantial evidence that the conclusive result had somehow been interfered with.

Candidates calling their losses into question has become something of a trend since former President Donald Trump actively sought to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, seeking to have the results thrown out in court, in state legislatures and ultimately in Congress. The campaign culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters during the formal certification of Biden’s victory at the Capitol in Washington.

After a June primary in New Mexico, the election commission of one rural county refused to certify the result citing similar distrust of the state’s voting machines. The commission, including one member who has been convicted of illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, was eventually ordered to certify the election by New Mexico’s Supreme Court, CBS News reported.