‘Absolutely unacceptable’: Atlantic Beach election protest hearing canceled

ATLANTIC BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) – A hearing that could have possibly led to Atlantic Beach certifying the results for the mayoral election ended up not taking place on Wednesday.

The town has been without a mayor since November after mayoral candidate Josephine Isom protested the election results between her and John David. Shortly after, town leaders voted to dissolve the election commission, which was later reinstated but leaders removed its commissioner. Kenneth McIver was selected at the end of February to be the acting chairman of the town’s election commission.

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With an acting chairman in place, a protest hearing on the election results was set for Wednesday morning to try and resolve the outstanding ballot issue.

But the hearing didn’t happen because Carolyn Gore and Derrick Stevens did not show up. It meant the necessary number of members to have a quorum was not met.

McIver said he found out on Tuesday night that Gore and Stevens had family emergencies and weren’t able to attend Wednesday’s protest hearing.

But McIver said he still called the meeting because he wanted to show residents that this was a serious matter and deserved an explanation as to why the protest hearing could not take place. The town’s attorney and court reporter even drove to Atlantic Beach from Columbia for the hearing.

“I wanted this to be resolved, the town wanted this to be resolved, and I was looking forward to actually having this resolved today,” said McIver.

The cancellation of the hearing left residents upset and some said they felt their time was being wasted.

“I would like to say shame on the town of Atlantic Beach,” said resident R. Naim Vaughan.

Others believe the two commissioners who didn’t show up did so purposely to stall the vote.

“I’ve never seen anything like this except on TV. But really, this is just absolutely unacceptable. We need them to count the votes,” said Atlantic Beach resident William Booker.

Because McIver was the only member of the election commission to show up, attorneys said he could not set a date for a rescheduled hearing.

“The public needs to know what happened and know that there’s at least no funny business going on through council, through candidate David, through candidate Isom, with regards to trying to delay this hearing because that’s not the case,” said Joseph Dickey, one of the town’s attorneys.

John David tells WMBF News if the situation is not resolved soon, he will take it to court.

“I think it is just wholly wrong that folks are disenfranchised in the town, said David. “We had an election November 7 and today is March 20, count the months that our votes haven’t been counted.”

McIver said he would work with attorneys to set up another hearing date. He hopes to reschedule the hearing for next week.

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