COUNTY — Six local candidates filing petitions to be placed on the November ballots beat Monday’s deadline with enough signatures to do the trick.
Once the numbers are verified, the field of candidates for five county races will grow in November.
In the race for Pickens County sheriff, Stan Whitten, who was kicked off the Republican primary ballot in May after the state Supreme Court ruled his paperwork was filed incorrectly, got 4,077 signatures and only needed 3,153.
Longtime Pickens County assistant sheriff Tim Morgan, who was not on the original primary ballot and needed the same number of signatures as Whitten, received 6,262.
Pending verification, Whitten and Morgan will face off against Republican Rick Clark, who won last month’s primary run-off against Sheriff C. David Stone, and independent candidate Keith Culbreath in November.
Republican Ed Harris, who defeated incumbent B.R. Skelton in the State House District 3 primary only to see himself disqualified last week by the state GOP, needed 799 signatures to get on November’s ballot opposite Skelton and garnered 1,798.
Rex Rice, who was originally running against State Senate District 2 incumbent Larry Martin in the Republican primary before the state Supreme Court ruling, got 3,910 signatures and only needed 2,730. He will face Martin in November for the seat.
Two Pickens County council spots will also be up for grabs in November after Kevin Linkenhoker got 950 signatures and Christopher Bowers got 801 after needing just 583 and 624, respectively. Linkenhoker will challenge Randy Crenshaw for the County Council District 3 seat in November, while Bowers will take on Jennifer Willis for the District 5 seat.
Although the petition candidates are all Republicans, voters wishing to cast their ballots for them in November will not be allowed to vote a straight ticket. The petition candidates will be listed separately from other Republican candidates.