Mark Lazarus lost a close runoff on June 28th to Johnny Gardner in the race for Horry County Council chair.
Lazarus said today that he is appealing to the county’s Republican Party to count all absentee ballots from the election. Horry County Republican Party Chairman Roger Slagle is not considered to be a huge supporter of Mark Lazarus, however.
The appeal by Lazarus stems from a mistake made several days before the runoff that resulted in nearly 1,380 Democratic runoff election ballots accidentally being sent to the county’s Republican voters.
In a news release on Tuesday, Lazarus said that absentee ballot votes received by the elections commission after 7 p.m. on June 28th might have changed the outcome of the race.
The Horry County Voter Registration and Elections Board denied his request to not certify the results until all of the ballots were counted, including those received past the 7 p.m. deadline.
“The county election office was not aware of the error until Friday before Election Day, when corrected ballots were mailed to 1,377 Republican voters,” said Lazarus. “Only 140 ballots were received by
Tuesday’s deadline to be counted.”
Lazarus said 183 ballots came back after the election.
“We do know is that 183 ballots came back in after the election, after 7 p.m. on Tuesday. State law says that if they come in after that period of time, they can’t be counted,” Lazarus said.
Lazarus already lost this appeal for a recount by the Horry County Voter Registration and Elections Board.
Unofficial results on election night showed Gardner, the incumbent chair, with 11,345 votes and Lazarus with 11,092.
Incumbent Johnny Gardner was certified as the winner of the Horry County Council Chairman seat.
Lazarus used the same campaign manager as Congressman Tom Rice and urged Horry County voters to vote for Tom Rice. Rice also lost in this election cycle.
Lazarus spent over $300,000 in donated campaign funds from the friends of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as, the development community. Another $200,000 was spent by funds from Wilmington, N.C. Businessman Fredrick Eschelman. Eschelman gave $5 million to the Our American Century PAC. $1,001,000 was paid from that PAC to Trafalgar. (Robert Cahaly.). Perhaps Eschelman, who is now suing for $2.5 million returned to him for investigating voter fraud should also be suing Our American Century and the vendors who received this money.
COUNT THE VOTE, EVEN WHEN STATE LAW SAYS NO?
If a voter voted by absentee on June 14th, that voter automatically received an absentee ballot for the runoff. Some were mailed Democrat party ballots. However, each of those voters were notified in advance of the runoff to bring those ballots to the polls.
Should Slagle deny Lazarus’ request, which is likely, Lazarus can then appeal to Drew McKissick of the S.C. Republican Party. Sources close to McKissick state that he will not grant Lazarus’ request either.
Lazarus’ last hope will then be an appeal to the S.C. Supreme Court. The court, however, must follow the letter of S.C. state law.
Those laws are clear, no votes sent in to the polls after 7 p.m. on June 28th will be counted.
It appears that no one wants to raise this Lazarus from the politically dead.