ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. — The Orangeburg County Coroner's Office race is down to two men: Orangeburg Chief Deputy Coroner Sean Fogle and Bamberg County Deputy Coroner Montez Haynes.
However, Haynes believes Fogle shouldn’t be on the ballot for Tuesday's runoff, claiming he’s not a South Carolina resident.
Fogle says he has a home in Georgia and voted in the Georgia election last year but says he became a registered voter in South Carolina this year. His attorney, Lawrence Keitt, says Fogle is a legal resident of South Carolina.
“The statue is very clear and residency is always a question of intent," said Keitt. "And as I told the panel, and in my closing, intent is shown by where you pay your money. If you pay your money to Timbuktu, that’s where your intent is. If you pay your money to Orangeburg County and the State of South Carolina, that’s where your intent is, and therefore according to the law, that’s where your residency is.”
But attorneys for Haynes see it differently. Haynes' representation, Thomas Sims, says Fogle should not be able to run for coroner.
“You say you are a 22-year resident of Orangeburg County but you pay your taxes in Georgia, you vote in Georgia, you got a Georgia driver's license and the only thing that you have to show you have an attachment to Orangeburg county is you live in heir property in Holly Hill," said Sims. "So, those are the issues that we were trying to bring up. There are some other things that we are probably going to bring up and will be brought up because this will be appealed to the state.”
Anthony Hallmon is the chair for the Orangeburg County Democratic Party. He says the party followed procedure when it comes to protests of elections.
“Mr. Haynes filed his protest on Monday, June 17 timely before 12 o’clock, and so as part of the process, he did that, and we had to hear the protest hearing and that’s what we did," said Hallmon. "We followed the process. It’s a democracy. Everybody has that right, and so I just hope that everybody gets out and votes June 25th in this upcoming primary runoff.”
After abut 30 minutes of deliberations, the Orangeburg Democratic Party committee decided to keep Fogle on the ballot.
The deadline to submit an appeal to the South Carolina State Democratic Party is on Friday by 3 p.m. Haynes says he’s planning on submitting paperwork to appeal Thursday's decision so that a hearing can be held on Saturday.
The Democratic Party has no restriction on how long a candidate has to be a resident before running for coroner.