Activist Alice

Alice jumped right in on this, not only signing a petition, but gathering signatures, too. Sherri Abbott may not have made it, but it wasn't because Alice didn't help!

Petition Drive Fails

Sherri Abbott didn’t make it.

The Richland County woman in a mad dash to get 10,000 signatures so her name could appear on the Nov. 4 ballot as a clerk of court candidate, said she fell short today.

“Overall we did really well,” she said early this afternoon. “Just the enormity of the support, you know, that I had for this and only being 1,000 shy of 10,000 says a lot about people wanting to come forward to be a part of this.”

She didn’t turn in her petitions to the voter registration office to be counted, she said, because she knew she missed the mark.

That leaves Jeanette McBride as the clerk-elect. McBride defeated longtime clerk Barbara Scott during the Democratic primary. Then revelations that McBride and her husband Frank owed $11,936.09 federal income taxes and had been late paying property taxes on their home in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 encouraged Abbott to run as a petition candidate.

Abbott started collecting names of registered voters on Thursday.

She had a deadline of noon today.

McBride said she was pleased with how it all turned out.

“I wasn’t even concerned, really and truly, about the petition,” McBride said. “It didn’t bother me.”

McBride also said she would be certain to pay her federal income taxes before she takes office.