Horry County's school board was torn Tuesday over what to do next after the state Election Commission, acting on an appeal, threw out the Nov. 7 sales tax referendum.

The district could appeal to the state Supreme Court, although the commission's chairman said members based their action on a 2003 Supreme Court opinion on a Charleston referendum that was also voided.

The commission allowed Horry County's road sales tax referendum to stand.

Shock, disappointment and confusion were common sentiments among school board members when they found out about the decision.

They thought the flier about the school district's sales tax, called "The Skinny on the Penny," was legal and unbiased, they said.

"I don't think that the 'Skinny on the Penny' flier that we had out there was out of line, so I was really surprised that the election commission overturned the results," said board member Paul Peterson.

The commission acted on an appeal from Conway resident Michael Visnich, who lost his protest last month to the Horry County Election Commission.

Bill Darby and Birgit Darby of Myrtle Beach joined the appeal to the state Election Commission.

"The polling place is supposed to be sacrosanct, a place of calm, devoid of outside influence, where voters cast their ballots according to their respective choices," Visnich's appeal said.

The commission agreed, saying the flier leaned too far from information into advocacy and broke the rule against having campaign materials within 200 feet of a polling place.

"We all agreed that the integrity of the election was called into question," said Karl "Butch" Bowers Jr., the election commission chairman.

The school district's flier outlined the consequences of a yes and no vote on the referendum while the flier about the county council's sales tax listed potential road projects and their costs.

The school district is free to distribute such materials before the election but should not have put them in the polling places and the Horry County Election Commission should not have allowed it, Bowers said.

The Horry County Registration and Elections office informed the school board that it was legal to have the fliers for voters to look at while standing in line at the precincts, so the board provided them and the elections office sent them out to the polls, according to Horry County school board chairman Will Garland.

"We relied on what we were told locally, and, whether we got good information or bad information, ... it appears we will bear the brunt of the penalty for our mistake, if one was indeed made," Garland said.

Had the board known this would happen, it never would have provided the fliers in the first place, he said.

Some school board members said they didn't understand why the county's sales tax for road projects withstood the scrutiny of the commission and the school district's sales tax did not because both of them had fliers at the polls.

"If they overturned the one, they should have overturned the other," said board member Joe DeFeo. "It's unfortunate that people can't just go to the polls and vote yes or no and have their votes stand."

The Horry County road tax was upheld because the information was merely "explanatory in nature," Bowers said.

The decision was unanimous among the three commissioners attending, Bowers said. The three are attorneys, and they received advice from two lawyers from the attorney general's staff, he said.

"We all came to the same conclusion," Bowers said. "These were campaign materials."

Candidates are not allowed to have campaign materials within 200 feet of a polling place and government bodies can't do it either, he said.

Options are still being explored, but it appears that the board could appeal the state commission's ruling to the state Supreme Court, hold a special election or continue funding school construction and renovation through property tax as it has until now, said Tom Barlow, an attorney who represented the board at the appeal.

The school board intended to use the additional 1-cent sales tax for 10 years to replace 28 mills of the levy for debt. The tax was expected to raise about $12 million a year, which would be used for school construction costs.

Horry County Schools spokeswoman Teal Britton doesn't want people to be alarmed or to think that the school district is not going to have enough money to build new schools.

"The need has been met. People have agreed to let us tax them [through property taxes] to meet that need," she said.

The Horry County school board has three courses of action they can take in response to the state's decision, according to an attorney who represents the district: appeal, hold another election or do nothing. This is where the seven of 12 board members who could be reached Tuesday stand on the options, although they stressed that legal advice might sway their opinions.

Appeal the decision | Joe DeFeo, Paul Peterson, Bill Graham, Chris Shannon

Hold another election | None

Do nothing, so that schools are built using property tax | Kay Loftus

Undecided | Will Garland, Harvey Eisner