Candidate Trout proving embarrassment to the GOP

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Guest column • Elmer Rumminger: Candidate Trout proving embarrassment to the GOP (07/13/04) • Sen. Ernest F. Hollings: U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast is bone of contention (07/12/04) • Kaye Davis: Sanford should veto telecom bill (07/11/04) • Betty Easler: Special effort should be made to aid disabled voters (07/10/04) • W. Andrew Arnold: Moving backward: the law of master and servant (07/08/04) More details Elmer Rumminger has been a resident of Greenville County since 1947, except for nine years as manager of an Atlanta radio station. He has been active in local and national Republican politics since the mid-1970s, and he recently retired after 50 years at Bob Jones University. About Top Jobs

Much of the rest of his recent guest column consists of distortions, misrepresentations of the facts and personal attacks on incumbent County Councilman Steve Selby and on the public-spirited citizens who lead the party under whose banner Trout chose to run.

To claim that Selby and alleged "cronies" on the executive committee are "trying to throw out the votes of lifelong Republicans by looking at stray pencil marks to contend that they became ineligible Democrats-for-a-day" is ludicrous in the extreme.

The physical, documentary evidence provided in more than eight hours of testimony before the executive committee clearly showed that at least 19 voters had illegally voted in the Republican runoff after having voted in the Democrat primary. This fact alone was enough to invalidate the results of the runoff, which had Trout leading Selby by l8 votes; and there were others: more Democrat ballots cast than voters identified as Democrats on the registration lists, a convicted felon voting illegally, another voter casting an absentee ballot just in advance of the runoff and then voting again in person at his polling place, etc., etc.

Contrary to Trout's claims, Selby's challenge was proper and timely under S.C. election laws. Further, Selby has never suggested that "the civic-minded and patriotic people who work the polls and run our elections engage in activities that would call an entire election into question." That language comes from Trout, not Selby.

It is not Trout who is "upholding the integrity of the election process." That is what the Greenville County Republican Party Executive Committee has done by invalidating the results of the runoff and in calling for a re-vote by the people.

The S.C. State Republican Executive Committee on Saturday agreed that the Greenville County Party acted properly.

Now Trout's legal team will take his appeal of these decisions to the courts. For shame! Why not let the people in District l8 decide?

I have been on the Greenville County Republican Executive Committee ever since 1976 and have represented South Carolina at six national conventions and three times on the national platform committee. I had never met or even heard of Trout until this election cycle, so I will not comment on his political philosophy; but I will say that I find his tactics and verbiage in this contest to be offensive and an embarrassment to the party.

If Trout decides to continue to identify himself as a Republican, I hope he will mend his ways.