A judge ruled Tuesday that Danny Ford II, a farmer and the son of a former Clemson football coach, must be included on the ballot after not initially being certified by the state GOP.
That means that voters in the special Republican primary election to replace the late Lindsey Graham in the race for U.S. Senate will now have 10 candidates on the ballot to decide amongst.
In an Aug. 4 order, Circuit Court Judge Daniel Coble said that the state GOP must certify Ford within 24 hours and that the state Election Commission needs to include him on early voting and election day ballots.
Early voting for the race will run from Aug. 5 to Aug. 7. Any of the absentee ballots already sent out or returned will not need to be changed; Ford had only sought his name to be instated on early voting and Aug. 11 ballots.
Ford had filed a lawsuit against the South Carolina GOP and SEC after the party had not certified him for the race; the state GOP had not certified Ford because of his participation record in previous statewide primary elections.
In a summer convention, the party established a new rule that any prospective Republican candidates in the state must have voted in two out of three of the most recent statewide GOP primary races under the new requirement.
The upcoming Senate special primary is the first race to be impacted by the party's new rule. Ford was one of three candidates not certified to appear on Aug. 11's ballot. He had previously appeared on the June 9 primary election ballot for state commissioner of agriculture, which was a race he lost.
Coble said in his order that the state GOP's application of the rule revealed a "lack of consistency, which tends to present its decisions on candidate certifications as capricious and arbitrary."
Part of the discrepancy stemmed from the lack of a concrete statewide primary definition. Ford had voted in the June 9 primary election and subsequent runoff, but his voting history prior to that pair of elections was sparse.
The state GOP saw the recent primary and runoff as two halves of the same election, and so said Ford was not qualified.
State political parties can — with some freedom — establish how their elections are conducted. Republicans argued that the rule attempted to ensure members of the GOP with established voting records appeared on the ballot; the state GOP has pushed for closed primaries within the state recently, even going as far as to file a lawsuit.
Coble said the party's decision on Ford's certification crossed into decisions usually made by the state.
"This Court holds that the SCGOP has waded into the gray area of state action where it certifies to the Commission who is and who is not on the ballot. After that certification, the SCGOP moves from a merely private association of like-minded individuals to a state actor," he wrote in the order.
A GOP spokesperson did not reply to request for comment prior to this article's publication.
The winner of the special primary election would face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews in November's General Election.
