Florence County receives no election protests

Florence County’s elections commission has received no challenges of the general election results by the passing of the protest deadline, said interim county Elections Director Steve Love.

Protests could be filed by noon Wednesday.

A meeting is in the works, however, among Florence County and city elections officials and the group that opposed the Sunday alcohol sales referendum in Florence, Florence city attorney Jim Peterson said.

Strengthening Florence Families wanted to “obtain a forum with the election commission to address their concerns so they won’t be repeated in future elections,” Peterson said.

The meeting has not yet been scheduled.

The group has stated that several people violated state law by distributing literature in favor of the referendum within 200 feet of the entrance to a polling place.

Group chairman Gary Finklea said the organization isn’t challenging the outcome of the referendum, which passed by 423 votes, because he didn’t want to be a “bad sport” and hold up the certification of results, which took place last Friday.

Elections officials had expected a challenge from former Florence County Council District 5 Democratic candidate Andy Wilson, who was defeated by Johnnie Rodgers Jr. in the June primary.

Wilson said he decided not to protest because of the time and money it would take for him to challenge the election, which he said was “screwed up” and “crooked.”

“We’re telling these folks that these problems are there, but they don’t want to research it, they don’t want to hear it, they don’t want to be bothered with it,” he said.

Wilson, who was seeking a write-in candidacy against Rodgers, said it’s likely that hundreds of voters at his precinct and others received a Florence city ballot although they lived outside city limits.

“It was ridiculous that all these folks in the county were voting on the (Florence) mayor, city council, the alcohol (referendum), but Johnnie’s name wasn’t on there, so they couldn’t write me in,” Wilson said.

After the primary, Wilson tried to begin a petition candidacy, which was denied based on a state law forbidding an elections commission from placing a defeated candidate’s name on the ballot.

But nothing prevents voters from writing in a defeated candidate’s name, Love said last week.

Nearly 70 percent of the county’s 85,231 registered voters turned out to vote in the general election.