SC Primary Has Money Troubles

POLITICO reports:

South Carolina’s primary — and its state pride — is on the line.

Faced with a state GOP that’s low on cash and a governor who’s cut off taxpayer funds, officials are scrambling to put together the $1.5 million necessary to run operations for the 2012 GOP presidential primary.

Primaries used to be the parties’ burden. But in 2008, Republicans and Democrats won state funding for their presidential primaries, which now allow crossover voting, putting their management in the hands of the State Election Commission for the first time. With tough economic times in the Palmetto State, the expected funding has now gotten tangled in a budget fight, and Republican Gov. Nikki Haley shows no signs of giving in to the state GOP’s new request for funding.

The State Election Commission on Friday won some relief when the state budget office advised that the agency would be able to use leftover cash from last year’s elections, up to $680,000, for next year’s state primaries and elections — even if Haley vetoes the measure in the budget bill.

But that still leaves them almost $1 million short.