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Update July 17, 2012:  By submitting voter petitions, snubbed Horry County candidates have a final chance to be recertified for the November elections.

If they are recertified, they will be listed on the ballots as "Petition" rather than any particular political party. The Horry County Election Commission doesn't typically get too many petitions. This cycle they are expecting several which will need each signature certification within the next 30 days. WMBF has more details here. 

Update May 15, 2012: The Operation Lost Vote movement is in effect in South Carolina, candidates that were taken off the primary ballot joined forces across the state to get the word out about their cause. 

Several news organizations covered the press conference that was held yesterday at Rotelli's Pizza in Conway. The above video is from WPDE News Channel 15 and you can read their whole write-up here. WMBF News also has a piece up here.

You can read The Post and Courier's take here -assuming you haven't hit their pay-wall limit.  

First Report May 14, 2012: Today, Monday May 14th, activists who feel they have been disenfranchised are fighting the recent SC Supreme Court's ruling which purged approximately 200 names from the ballots. 

Operation Lost Vote kicks off across the state today, locally a press conference is scheduled for 12:15 p.m., at Rotelli’s Pizza in Conway.  It will be hosted by Horry County RINO Hunt, the Carolina Patriots, and other grassroots organizations.

While fighting for your right to vote is a great thing and one we should do, FITS News has a pointed out a few things in their write-up about Operation Lost Vote:

First off, nobody in South Carolina has been disenfranchised – although their partisan primary choices have been severely limited. Here’s the thing, though – whether it was their fault or not, each one of these “approximately 200 candidates” dropped the ball. Meanwhile hundreds of other candidates (including a pair of college students) were able to read and understand the state’s campaign laws and fulfill their responsibilities in filing for public office.

That’s the sort of “individual responsibility” that we thought the Tea Party was all about. It’s also the sort of attention to detail you’d hope to see from those asking us to trust them with writing our laws.

Hop on over to FITS to read the rest of their take on the issue.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Is this a case of "the establishment" keeping out the little guy, or is it a case of not dotting the I's and crossing the T's?