When the official filing period for candidates ended, no one had stepped up to run against Starnes, the incumbent mayor. State law requires than any candidate hoping to run as a write-in candidate must declare an intention to do so within 14 days after the end of the election filing period.

No write-in candidates materialized during that two-week period, and Starnes had no challengers. In such a circumstance, state law requires that the candidate who filed for office be declared the winner by the local election commission. Votes for any write-in candidates are not counted. In fact, the declared winner's name does not even have to appear on the ballot.

Thus, Starnes got a free pass and will serve another term as mayor.

If someone had wanted to run against him, he or she should have filed as a candidate or at least have declared as a write-in candidate during the allotted 14-day period. But we don't understand why the state would prevent voters from electing a write-in candidate if that were the will of the electorate.

We can envision a scenario in which news of criminal or immoral behavior on the part of the only candidate to file becomes public days before the election. Under state law, that candidate would have to be declared the winner anyway, and voters would not have the option of writing in the name of an alternate candidate.

This strikes us as both arbitrary and counter to state tradition. After all, South Carolina's native son Strom Thurmond was the only person ever to have won a seat in the U.S. Senate on a write-in campaign.

Even with a write-in challenge, Starnes likely would have been re-elected handily. Still, voters should have the prerogative to select another candidate even at the last minute.

The law should be changed.