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COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina Democratic Party officials have 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 Thursday there was not enough evidence of impropriety to nullify the June 8 election victory by Alvin Greene. The 32-year-old lives with his father and waged no visible campaign. The decision nixed a bid for another primary by candidate Vic Rawl, who contended he lost because of problems with electronic voting machines. Party officials pushing against a new election...

Watchdog Group Files Complaints Over South Carolina PrimaryBy BRIAN KNOWLTON June 15, 2010, 5:43 pm The unemployed South Carolina man whose surprise victory in last week’s Democratic primary race for a Senate seat has drawn intense scrutiny now faces another obstacle. A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, on Tuesday filed formal complaints with federal and state election officials (pdf) asserting that he and three other candidates violated election law. The group questioned (pdf) whether Alvin Michael Greene, an unknown who with little apparent funding beyond his unemployment checks had managed to pay a $10,440 filing fee,...

Did Voting Machines Play a Role in Alvin Greene's Win?Jun 15 2010, 5:09 PM ET It's an explanation that's been proposed by some: that South Carolina's electronic touch-screen voting machines had something to do with Alvin Greene's victory in the state's Democratic Senate primary. The vast majority of South Carolina's votes are cast on ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machines; paper ballots are used for absentee ballots and in emergency cases (like when poll workers are locked out of a polling place early in the morning and can't let voters in), but every polling station uses touch-screen machines to record the vast...

S.C. Democrats To Deliberate Mystery Nominee's FateBy Peter Overby Wed., June 16, 2010 6:43pm (EDT) Updated: 3 hours ago Democrats in South Carolina are still wondering just what happened last week when they picked their nominee for U.S. Senate. The easy winner in the primary was Alvin Greene, a cipher of a candidate who had no visible campaign. The losing candidate is protesting the outcome, and the state Democratic Party will hold a hearing on the matter Thursday. Since the primary, Greene has done some TV interviews, but he's also hung up on a lot of reporters. He didn't respond...

South Carolina Mystery Candidate Alvin Greene Was a Terrible Soldier It's been almost a week since mystery man Alvin Greene inexplicably won South Carolina's Democratic senate primary and yet he is still largely a mystery. We spoke to one of Greene's former Army colleagues for some insight into the guy. When Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed veteran with a pending felony obscenity charge, defeated a former judge and legislator, the media and political establishment were immediately suspicious. Since then, allegations of voter fraud—or GOP skullduggery—have dogged his campaign. (Yesterday, Greene's former opponent filed a formal protest over the results.) And some...

A U.S. Senate candidate asked for a new Democratic primary Monday after he lost last week to an unemployed military veteran who raised no money and had no signs and no ads. The Democratic Party's 92-member executive committee plans a hearing Thursday on former state lawmaker Vic Rawl's protest and could order the primary results overturned. State party leaders can't remember that ever happening before. Rawl could also appeal to the state Supreme Court. Pundits have been puzzled since Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old political unknown, defeated Rawl in the primary to see who would face GOP U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint,...

Party Leader Says Greene Advised Not To RunPlea For Greene To Step Down Continues UPDATED: 10:06 pm EDT June 11, 2010 COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Alvin Greene’s startling victory in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate race, followed by revelations of his felony charge, continues to raise eyebrows within both political parties. South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler said she tried to dissuade Greene from running when he paid his $10,400 filing fee. “I wanted to discourage him a little bit because he did not seem ready to run for an office that high, but he was dead set...

Where did Alvin Greene get $10,000 to register his candidacy?58 mins ago The evidence is mounting that Alvin Greene, the mysterious unemployed veteran and accused sex offender who shocked South Carolina Tuesday night by winning the Democratic Senate primary, was put up to the candidacy in some sort of political skullduggery. In March, Greene paid a $10,400 filing fee to get on the ballot. But just four months before that, when he was charged with showing obscene images to a woman, Greene qualified for representation by a public defender—which in South Carolina requires an "affidavit of indigency" to prove that...

A strange occurrence took place recently deep in the Argonne forest of France. Two Midstate university scholars, Michael Birdwell and Tom Nolan, whooped and hollered like Predators fans reacting to a score. "We were screaming and shouting," Birdwell said. In fact, they had "scored." Combining their expertise — Birdwell in history and Nolan in high-tech mapmaking — the pair pinpointed with satellite accuracy the site where Sgt. Alvin C. York silenced a nest of German machine gunners and captured 132 prisoners during World War I. For his heroics in October 1918, the man from Pall Mall, Tenn., was awarded the...

VERBENA (AP) — A huge Confederate battle flag flying over Interstate 65 north of Montgomery will become a permanent fixture, according to officials with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The organization bought land on the side of the interstate near Verbena and put up the flag, which has been flying for several months above the tree lines from the top of a large pole, easily visible from the heavily traveled interstate. Leonard Wilson, commander of the Alabama division of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the flag will be dedicated in a ceremony at 5 p.m. on June 26. The flag...

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WASHINGTON - A new deep-sea research vessel will be able to carry people to 99 percent of the ocean floor, diving deeper than the famed Alvin that pioneered the study of seafloor vents, plate tectonics and deep ocean creatures over the past 40 years. The new American submersible will provide the tools to reach "not for the stars but for the depths," Robert Gagosian, president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said Friday at a briefing at the National Science Foundation (news - web sites). France, Russia and Japan also operate deep sea research vessels and China is building one,...