LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. — Irmo town council candidate Gabriel Penfield, who lost by 25 votes, has filed protests over recent election results.
Over 20 people were present for a public hearing Friday to talk about discrepancies they felt took place during the election.
Penfield sat in front of the Lexington County Election Board to make his case. Penfield lost his race for town council on Tuesday.
Penfield tells News 19 he's upset a disqualified candidate, George Frazier, was still on the ballot. Frazier got 72 votes. Penfield says that was more than enough to make a difference.
Election leaders said flyers were being handed out at polling locations explaining that Frazier had been disqualified, but Penfield said not all voters got that information.
However, the Lexington County Elections Board voted to keep the results as is, saying Penfield's concerns did not match up with his original protest letter earlier this week.
"I think meeting the letter of the law and evading the spirit of the law is very frustrating. If I had added one sentence to the paper, as it relates to what the main concern was, my concern is not with any candidate. My concern is with the abandonment of the process of managing the election," Penfield said.
Members of the public who attended the hearings, including Rose Davis, explain it was important for them to be in the room.
"I didn't think that the election in Irmo was handled properly," Davis said.
Davis said she voted curbside and didn't see flyers showing Frazier was disqualified.
"My 15th amendment right was violated. For those that aren't familiar, that's the right to vote. No one can be denied the right to vote and I was denied the right to vote," Barrett Owens, Irmo resident said.
Owens tells News 19 he was turned away from his precinct in Ballentine, when in fact he verified after the fact with the town of Irmo that he was eligible to vote, according to the Lexington County GIS map.
Penfield explains going forward he intends to run for the mayor pro-tem seat in the town of Irmo given all the support he's received.
As far as next steps after this hearing, he tells News 19 he'll take it to the court of common pleas if that's what the public wants.
News 19 asked to interview an election board member from Lexington County and they denied the request.