Posted on 06/14/2010 11:27:02 AM PDT by wastedpotential
He lost to a total unknown, and now the former South Carolina lawmaker is calling foul.
Vic Rawl, a former state Representative, filed a formal protest on Monday contesting the shocking primary "win" of Alvin Greene.
"We have filed this protest not for my personal or political gain, but on behalf of the people of South Carolina," the Democratic hopeful said in a statement on his official Web site.
"There is a cloud over South Carolina, that affects all of our people, Democrats and Republicans, white and African-American alike," he said. "At this point, the people of our state do not have the basic confidence that their vote will be counted."
Greene, an unemployed Army veteran who reportedly lives with his dad, surprised everyone by winning the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate last week. That victory was quickly criticized, since the 32-year-old never campaigned and raised little to no funds.
Rawl, on the contrary, spent millions on his campaign and seemed to be the odds-on favorite.
"The strange circumstances surrounding Tuesday's vote require a thorough investigation," the Circuit Court Judge said. "For better or worse, this protest process is the only platform currently available for that investigation."
Rawl cites election irregularities as a possible culprit. Greene won Tuesday with nearly 59 percent of the vote to his 41 percent, but the former candidate suggests voting may have been corrupted.
"Many voters and poll workers... continue to contact us with their stories of extremely unusual incidents while trying to vote and administer this election," Rawl said. "These range from voters who repeatedly pressed the screen for me only to have the other candidate's name appear, to poll workers who had to change program cards multiple times."
Some Democratic pundits and politicians have suggested Greene could be a "plant," funded by a person or group, in an effort to aide the Republicans.
"Some Republican operative saw this as a chance to mess with the Democratic nominating process," Dick Harpootlian, former South Carolina democratic party chairman, recently told Keith Olberman on MSNBC.
Greene has denied he is a plant, but has not explained where he obtained the $10,400 needed to file as a candidate.
"It raises the question, did somebody assist him in filing?" Harpootlian told the Washington Post.
Others have actually questioned Greene's "mental" capacity.
"About two questions into a conversation with [Greene], it would become apparent that he is not probably fit to answer the questions befitting a Senate candidate," State Rep. Todd Rutherford, a Democrat, told Fox News.
On top of the conspiracy theories floating around Greene, there is also his pending criminal case regarding pornography.
Court records show Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina co-ed, a felony. He has yet to enter a plea or be indicted.
The GOP has denied any involvement with Greene or his primary win.
"For the people of South Carolina, getting to the bottom of Tuesday’s results will build confidence, either way," Rawl said.
it IS the sore/loserman party after all.....they are what they are.
I don’t know about SC specifically, but I believe that most States allow for a ‘fee in lieu of petition’. You can submit petitions to file for free (showing that you have a minimum base of support), or you can pay the fee. In either case, you have, to quote our illustrious pResident, “Skin in the game.” That puts up a minimum bar to keep from having 1,000 names on the primary ballot.
If you are running for U.S. Senate, and you can’t afford $10,400, then you aren’t series about running for Senate.
I paid $3,125 to run for Congress in TX (lost the primary). I could have provided a petition of 500 Republican primary voters instead. Sounds easy. Except. If you have 10 seconds to spend with a potential voter, you don’t want to waste that time talking about the legalize of signing a petition.
Besides, nobody goes through your cash to see which dollars they can get disqualified.
Really. I spent tens of thousands of dollars (much of it my own money) and a year of my life running for Congress. $3,125 is NOT why I didn’t win and wasn’t a serious bar to entry considering all the other costs - money, time, and otherwise - to run.
Heh, heh, heh...
I wonder who is funding the challenge to Greene’s win by Rawls?
That loser Rawls in SC and the rat party can whine all they like.
Greene followed their rules and fronted the 10k entry fee thereby proving that he WAS series about running.
Everything else is popcorn fodder.
The REAL deal is that he supposedly didn’t file with the FEC. That’s HUGH! I ended up 27k in debt (to myself) and had an offer this weekend for a contribution to help. I declined. At this point, I’d rather stay 27k in debt than have to amend my now closed FEC committee paperwork.
That’s not correct. He had to file. The rules state if you raise OR spend more than 5k, you must file. 10.4k filing fee by itself breaches the requirement to file.
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/candidate_registration_brochure.pdf
I’m feeling like I need to be rooting for Greene. I love it when someone sticks a finger in the establishment!
Vic Rawl lost overwhelmingly, yet cannot respect the will of the voters. It’s no wonder that no one voted for him. He and Olberman are nothing more than rascist bigots.
Actually only about 30000. Greene's total vote was around 100000.
Nothing new here, each time the Democrats lose, they run crying to the courts. By the time they get through recounting, Greene won’t have vote one and Rawl will have them all.
Republicans that notice, this is only a rehershal for the mid term election if they are held in November.
I don’t think Rawl thinks his whiteness should have given him the win. It seems he’s protesting because this Green guy pretty much filed the $10k entry fee, sat in his parent’s basement for a few months, did nothing to campaign, and won by what, 60-40% ?
I mean it’s fun to watch Dems wrestle each other in the mud like this, but you gotta admit that there’s something really, really weird going down here.
Isn’t that like a Poll Tax of sorts?
"A poll tax is a discriminatory tax that is a pre-condition of the exercise of the ability to vote." - Wikipedia
I don't know about the legal issues surrounding this, but it seems to me that if there was not some sort of fee to run for public office, many people might register on a whim, resulting in large extra costs to the state for printing ballots and voter pamphlets.
I noticed in an earlier article that Greene paid the fee at the Democrat Party office, so perhaps they got some of it.
The primaries are run by the parties. That’s why the fees are paid to the parties. The fees serve 2 purposes:
1. Pay for cost of placement on ballot.
2. Minor barrier to entry that eliminates frivolous entries without being exclusive of serious candidates.
I, for one, think its shameful that Rawl and his fellow democrats are being so racist and refusing to believe that a relatively inexperienced black man could legitimately win an election against an old white career politician.
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