Explaining the Goose Creek Runoff

After reading the unofficial results Tuesday night in the Goose Creek municipal election, Mayor Michael Heitzler congratulated incumbents Jerry Tekac and John McCants.

And the mayor walked over to Planning Commission Chairman Franklin Moore and congratulated him for his perceived win of the third seat. But it turns out Moore isn't on the council yet.

State law requires a majority vote in the election of municipal leaders and Moore didn't have enough support in the eight-man race to avoid a runoff with the first runner-up, incumbent Sal Gandolfo.

S.C. Code of Laws 5-15-62 states that the number of votes cast is divided by the number of seats available. In this case, that's 3,226 divided by 3 — a little more than 1,075.3. That number is divided in half to determine the majority of the votes cast: 538.

Tekac and McCants each finished far above that threshold, but Moore's 487 wasn't enough to avoid the runoff with Gandolfo, who had 435. According to state law, the candidate who receives the highest number of votes in the runoff April 17 will be declared the winner.