South Carolina State Election Commission

The South Carolina State Election Commission set the calendar for the special Republican primary to replace Lindsey Graham following his death on 11 July 2026 : candidate filing 21-28 July, a special primary on 11 August, and a runoff on 25 August if needed . Separately, around 16 July the Commission declared its voter-eligibility review "completed", barring anyone who voted in June's Democratic primary from taking part . Its statement, issued under executive director Conway Belangia, cited no specific statute or attorney-general opinion, only "the requirements of South Carolina election law".

The calendar itself runs under S.c. Code § 7-11-55, which Lowdown verified directly: it governs only the filing window, the primary and runoff dates, and candidate substitution when a nominee dies after being selected in a primary. It contains no language addressing who may vote in the resulting special primary at all, which is why the Commission's eligibility rationale rests on unspecified "state law" rather than the statute it names for the calendar.

Lowdown's own calculation, working backward from that calendar under the federal 45-day advance-ballot rule for military and overseas voters, finds the Deadline for the 11 August primary fell on 27 June, before Graham died and the vacancy existed, and the Deadline for the 25 August runoff fell on 11 July, the day he died. That is a structural defect in a compressed, legislatively mandated timeline the Commission did not write, not evidence the Commission broke federal law: a hardship waiver from the Secretary of Defense exists under federal statute, and it is not known whether South Carolina sought or received one.