Reece Delivers Petition In Columbia Monday

Tommie Reece may not know officially whether or not she'll be on the ballot in November for another few weeks, but her campaign is celebrating this week in anticipation that the more than 3,000 signatures they turned in Monday will hold up to scrutiny by local election officials. 

Reece was once on the ballot in the GOP primary race for the Senate 6 seat currently held by incumbent Mike Fair, but was  just three days before the June 12 primary because she hadn't filed her statement of economic interest form at the exact same time she declared her candidacy. She's one of many decertified candidates across the Upstate who had  through a petition drive, and now it appears her Senate hopes have been resurrected. 

Needing 2,949 signatures of registered and active voters in the district, Reece said she turned in more than 3,000 such signatures Monday at the South Carolina Elections Commission in Columbia. 

"We walked in and delivered them at 10 o'clock," Reece said. "They count them very quickly and make sure the pages have been numbered correctly and verify they've received them. It's nothing official, but at least you get a signed receipt that they took those petitions."

Reece's delivery was made of some 681 pages, she said. It could take another week for those petitions to be sent from Columbia to Greenville County election officials for official verification. Once Greenville has them, officials will have 30 days to certify the signatures. Reece and her campaign are confident that they have more than enough signatures to get her on the ballot in November. 

"We counted, verified and matched up every signature with a registered, active voter from a list we got from the election commission," Reece said. 

And while Reece has what will no doubt be a spirited campaign against Fair if indeed she is on the ballot, she feels there's always been a victory gained. 

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and the only way it was succesful is we had so many people who rose to the occasion," Reece said. "It was so gratifying and gives you confidence in the American way, if you will. Someone said to me this morning, 'turns out people do like democracy.'"