Chapter 1 B.1. Exhaust Administrative Remedies Mr. Taylor said he did not know that the bonds were going to be issued until he got a notice of the proposed issuance of the bonds. So in August 1978, Mr. Taylor filed a lawsuit in a state court against the county school board to stop the board from issuing $2.7 million in bonds to build schools in the county. Mr. Taylor said that because the ballot question was misleading, it was improperly submitted to the voters, and therefore the new constitutional permission was without legal effect.2 Was Mr. Taylor tricked? Was he misled? Were the other citizens of South Carolina misled when they voted to amend their constitution? We will never know because, as it turned out, Mr. Taylor did not follow the rules for challenging an election, and the case was ended by the South Carolina Supreme Court before it got to those questions. The South Carolina Constitution allowed the South Carolina legislature to set up procedures for contesting elections: 1. Each County Board of Canvassers would decide “all cases under protest or contest.” 2. Appeals from the County Board of Canvassers would go to the State Board of Canvassers. • • The state board had the responsibility to decide “all cases under protest or contest…involving more than one county.” The State Board of Canvassers would meet within 10 days after the election to canvass the vote on all constitutional issues. 3. Appeals from the state board would go to the Supreme Court of South Carolina. The supreme court in this case cited older cases to conclude that the state canvassing board’s authority applied to issues about the sufficiency of ballot questions. Furthermore, questions like Mr. Taylor’s—of whether a constitutional amendment was properly adopted—must first have been brought before the County Board of Canvassers, with any appeal going to the State Board of Canvassers. The court said, Under the common law there is no right to contest an election. The right to contest an election exists only under the constitutional and statutory provisions, and the procedure proscribed by statute must be strictly followed. The determination of election contests is judicial only when and to the extent authorized by statute; and the constitutional and statutory provisions in the various jurisdictions determine what tribunal shall entertain the proceeding, and only such tribunal shall do so. See 29 C.J.S. Elections §§ 246, 247, 252 (1965); 26 Am.Jur.2d Elections §§ 316, 318. At 582 (emphasis supplied). Here, the plaintiff below did not bring his objections to the election process before either the County Board or the State Board of Canvassers. Nor did he attempt to challenge the explanations before this Court before the general election, as he could have done under [state law]. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiff ’s failure to pursue his statutorily provided remedies precludes this attack on the election process. In the words of the South Carolina Supreme Court, Mr. Taylor said in his lawsuit “that the ballot question created a latent defect in the amendment by misleading him so he did not know that the election requirement was being removed until he received notice of the proposed issuance of the bonds in Newberry County.” At 581. This lawsuit had great importance throughout South Carolina: other bonds in other counties had been sold but could not be delivered with the lawsuit pending, nor could other counties’ bond issues—or bond issues of the state—be offered while the lawsuit was pending. 2 3