Greene A No-Show At Hearing

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Greene is a no-show at today's protest hearing of his victory over Vic Rawl in South Carolina 's primary last week. South Carolina 's Democratic Executive Committee is now hearing Rawl's challenge of the election results. The Rawl campaign says it's received numerous complaints of voting irregularities, and believes there are problems with the state's electronic voting machines. A spokesman for South Carolina 's elections commission says there's nothing wrong with the machines. Democratic executive committee member Sallie Morgan doesn't thing there was anything wrong with the machines, but she suspects something more nefarious occurred. Morgan says she's leaning toward ordering a new election. "If it has to be, we'll just do another election. Fair is fair. I don't think what it was (done) right and we should do it right," Morgan says. Morgan says she doesn't understand how Greene, who is unemployed, could pay the $10,400 filing fee. Greene says he saved the money while in the Army. He was discharged last August. The Democratic party's executive director, Jay Parmley, says the executive committee has three options. It can declare Rawl the winner, although he notes such an action requires a high burden of proof that significant errors or fraud occurred. He says the committee can also void the election and order a new primary. He says the state would have to pay for a new election, and the Justice Department would have to clear those decisions. The third option is to uphold the election results.