Myrtle Beach area Republicans throw out an appeal for new chairman election. What’s next?

Mark Lazarus is bringing his concerns over a compromised Horry County Council GOP runoff election to state party leaders after his call for a new election was rejected by local Republicans.

Lazarus told The Sun News Friday his team would file an appeal with the S.C. GOP, setting the stage for a hearing in Columbia some time in the coming days for his case to be heard.

S.C. GOP spokeswoman Claire Brady said her office received the appeal Friday afternoon.

“By law, the state Executive Committee will hold an appeal hearing sometime before (July 16),” she said in an email to The Sun News. “The state Executive Committee will take a vote, and that vote will be the final say.”

Lazarus, who ran the County Council from 2013 through 2018, lost a June 28 runoff to incumbent Johnny Gardner by 240 votes but questioned those results because 1,377 Republicans voters got Democratic absentee ballots ahead of Election Day.

“We believe that we have enough people that we’ve talked to and have evidence that they didn’t have the opportunity to have their voice heard,” Lazarus said in a Friday interview.

Gardner, who first beat Lazarus in 2018 for the council’s top seat, took 50.6 percent of the June 28 vote to Lazarus’s 49.4 percent, enough to avoid an automatic recount. In 2018, Gardner edged out Lazarus by 111 votes. Days before the late June contest, 1,377 GOP voters got ballots meant for Democrats, an error county election officials blamed on the “printing and mailing process” from West Columbia-based Sun Solutions.

Lazaurs requested that county election officials a day after the runoff to delay certifying results until all absentee ballots could be counted, but they refused.

He then asked the Horry County GOP for a hearing that could have resulted in a new election, which occurred July 7. But that went nowhere after Gardner’s attorney cited a 1962 state law requiring protests in elections of county officers be submitted to party chairs “not later than noon Monday” after a race is certified.

In Lazarus’ case, that would have been July 4. Horry County GOP chairman Roger Slagle said he didn’t receive a copy of Lazarus’ appeal until Tuesday.

Gardner’s attorney said despite it falling on Independence Day, state law makes no exception for a late deadline. The Horry County GOP’s executive committee agreed, voting 40-5 to toss his complaint.

“The election was solid. There was nothing wrong with the election,” Gardner told The Sun News Thursday. “The ballots were clear, everyone understood what they were doing. To go the other way would be nothing but pure speculation.”

Committee member Audrey Flanagan said the party should have considered Lazarus’s case before voting.

“When the wrong ballot are sent out and we have voters saying they’re disenfranchised, I think we’re abdicating our duty if we just sign off on a technicality and say, ‘we’re not going to do anything about it,’” she said at the July 6 meeting.

Lazarus, who was ready to call Horry County voter registration director Sandy Martin as a witness, said he wasn’t surprised at the outcome but criticized party leaders for shutting down his claim.

“I figured they at least would have wanted to hear the proceedings,” he said. “This same GOP stood before County Council and asked for a recount of the 2020 election saying that it was not properly done.”

This story was originally published July 8, 2022 at 12:00 AM.