Defeated South Carolina Senator Withdraws Election Protest

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Former South Carolina state senator Gerald Malloy has withdrawn his protest of the election results in S.C. Senate District 29 – one of several Democratic strongholds which was flipped red by the narrowest of margins last month.

However, the veteran attorney chided state election officials for their alleged failure to conduct an “in-depth review” of glaring irregularities uncovered by an independent analysis – which, according to Malloy’s campaign, “found hundreds of discrepancies in vote counts in at least three different counties.”

“This could happen, and be happening, anywhere or everywhere,” Malloy’s attorneys wrote in their formal notice (.pdf) withdrawing the protest.

As the protest was being withdrawn, Malloy called Republican senator JD Chaplin of Darlington, S.C. to concede the race and “help in the transition.”

Chaplin, who was sworn in last month, defeated Malloy by a mere 278 votes out of nearly 50,000 ballots cast on November 5, 2024. However, an automatic recount revealed significant discrepancies which reduced Chaplin’s winning margin to just 87 votes.

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Citing “systemic problems” in rural Lee County, Malloy formally protested the results – and a hearing on his challenge was scheduled for today (December 3, 2024). On the eve of the protest, though, Malloy pulled the plug.

According to a statement from Malloy’s campaign, officials with the S.C. Election Commission (SCVotes.gov) engaged in a “remarkable feat of reverse engineering” as part of a purported bid to justify severe irregularities in the tabulation of votes in Lee County.

 “The (commission) looked into the ballot boxes and behind the secrecy of our voting booths to justify its re-tabulation of Lee County votes,” Malloy’s campaign noted. “(This) evaluation did not look at the voter poll lists or the activity logs of the electronic voting equipment used in this election.”

Malloy also claimed SCVotes “refused to let the most qualified expert in the state… analyze the data used by the SEC in its evaluation.”

The expert, Duncan Buell of the University of South Carolina, submitted his independent report to the state in conjunction with Malloy’s protest withdrawal. According to that document (.pdf), “the final results certified and officially reported on the (SCVotes.gov) website for Senate District 29 in Lee County do not match or agree with the data from the voter poll list and the electronic scanning and tabulation machines.”

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RELATED | ELECTION IRREGULARITIES DRAW SCRUTINY

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Buell also analyzed election data from Sumter County, determining that the data there “was substantially different from the allegedly final results certified and officially reported on the (SCVotes.gov) website.”

“Certified vote counts do not match the data from the electronic voting equipment used to count and tabulate the votes,” Buell wrote.

In Marlboro County, Buell found a 450-vote discrepancy between “vote totals and vote counts tabulated and reported.”

“It is my professional opinion that the data provided for this election is sufficiently anomalous that it should not be taken as the accurate or final result of this election,” Buell concluded. “In multiple counties in this election, hundreds of votes are not properly accounted for in the data. With a margin of less than one hundred votes, it is my professional opinion that one cannot  conclude who won the election without a complete exposure of the data and a verification that the data support the conclusion of who won.”

Despite these troubling revelations, Malloy’s sought-after remedy – a new election – was unlikely to have been granted by the S.C. Board of Canvassers. That would have left him with the option of appealing his protest to the S.C. Senate, where his odds of prevailing were even narrower.

Accordingly, he withdrew his protest.

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“I have tremendous respect for and will always honor the South Carolina Senate,” Malloy said in announcing his decision. “This election has left many serious questions. But to take a protest to its full conclusion would leave Senate District 29 without representation during a critical period and put the honorable institution I love in an untenable circumstance. Therefore, I am directing my attorneys to stand down, and I have called Senator Chaplin to help in the transition.  I will continue to work to improve our infrastructure, public safety, and education among the many other needs in the Pee Dee.”

Malloy, a powerful lawyer-legislator, was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – filling a seat vacated by the death of veteran trial lawyer Edward Saleeby. He amassed considerable influence in the chamber over the intervening two decades, becoming one of the Senate’s most adept parliamentarians.

Despite campaigning as a “conservative” tax cutter, Malloy was one of four rural Democrats to lose his seat last month – continuing a transformative shift in both the balance of power and ideological composition of the Senate.

Will that shifting balance result in more conservative policies being implemented by this chamber? We shall see…

In the meantime, Malloy’s election protest – while unsuccessful – has exposed glaring problems with South Carolina’s inconsistently administered, locally driven election system. It has further validated my long-held belief that state election officials, not local fiefdoms, should run these races – using far more rigorous standards of uniform oversight and review. Sixteen years ago, I laid out a comprehensive reform agenda for the Palmetto State called the ‘95 Theses.’ That document included a recommendation (Thesis No. 6, for those of you keeping score at home) to place the office of secretary of state within the governor’s cabinet – and to task its holder with serving as the “chief election officer” for the state.

That would have provided a direct line of executive accountability over elections in South Carolina. Sadly, lawmakers have failed to adopt any such reform… and have, in fact, moved in reverse.

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THE WITHDRAWAL…

(Malloy for Senate)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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