Tag: Chuck Ottwell

SC House District 106 Filing Starts Friday

Filing for the special election for SC House District 106 will open Friday May 29, 2015 at noon.

The special election will fill the unexpired term of Rep. Nelson Hardwick who resigned from office earlier this month.

While nothing becomes official until filing papers and fees are submitted, two candidates have already announced their intentions to seek the office.

Russell Fry, an Horry County attorney and Republican Party executive committeeman, and Tyler Servant, Horry County Council District 5 member, have announced they will be running for the open SC House District 106 seat.

We are hearing Chuck Ottwell, recently appointed to the Coast RTA board, and former candidate for Horry County Council District 5 is planning to run.

Local writer Mande Wilkes’ name has been aired as a possible candidate. She challenged Hardwick in the 2010 Republican Primary for the nomination and scored an impressive 45% of the vote against a, then, three term incumbent.

However, Wilkes and husband Alex Robinson have had a son since that race, which may be a deterring factor to running for office at this time.

We are hearing speculation that Reese Boyd III, Horry County attorney and former Republican Party official, who lost to Servant in a runoff for the Horry County Council District 5 Republican nomination, may also be considering a run.

Boyd is the most experienced and probably best qualified of the names mentioned.

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Coast RTA Moving Forward Despite Distractions

As Coast RTA has attempted to move forward since terminating former General Manager Myers Rollins, it has been subjected to what appears to be a campaign further discredit the agency.

This is not unusual. When a public agency makes the headlines with negative publicity, there is a tendency for some to pile on, especially if they have personal agendas.

The agency has problems, most seriously with its bus fleet which has been allowed to deteriorate while things like island ferries were discussed under the Rollins regime.

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Absentee Vote Glitch Affects Two Horry County Primary Election Races

Grand Strand Daily has learned that a computer glitch caused incorrect absentee vote totals to be credited to candidates Tuesday night resulting in a change of results for two Horry County primary election races.

According to sources involved in the process, an apparent fault was first discovered Wednesday morning in the absentee vote totals credited to the Horry County Council District Five candidates.

The sources said that some of the absentee vote totals are stored in a computer prior to election night, those being the early voters in the county. Other absentee votes are registered on paper ballots that were cast in the traditional absentee method.

When the paper ballot vote totals were added to the computer vote totals, the addition of approximately 300 extra votes were credited to candidate Clif Smith, according to sources. None of the other candidates received the benefit of extra votes.

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