The Constitution Party does not expect to field a candidate in this year's Lancaster County commissioner race, its national chairman said Tuesday afternoon.

If Thursday's deadline to name a candidate passes without the Constitution Party offering one, it will mark the first time in eight years the conservative group doesn't run a candidate in a county commissioner contest.

"What I had in mind didn't work out," national party chairman Jim Clymer, a Lancaster attorney, said Tuesday. "At this point, we don't have a candidate. Unless somebody appears very quickly," the Constitution Party is out of the race, he said.

Clymer earlier this month handed the county Board of Elections enough signatures to have his name appear on the ballot alongside two Republican candidates, two Democrats and an independent, but Clymer did so only to guarantee the Constitution Party would have a slot.

The plan, according to Clymer, was for him to hold the place on the ballot until another candidate could be found. Clymer would then recuse himself and nominate the other person in his place. Thursday is the deadline for candidates to do this.

The election is Nov. 6.

Clymer said his duties as chairman of the national Constitution Party prevent him from running for county commissioner.

"My plate is just too full right now," he said. "We're getting ready for a presidential election year. … I just don't have the resources and time to put on an all-out race. Frankly, I wish that I did."

Clymer said he had a specific person in mind to run for commissioner.

"He gave it serious consideration, and he came close, but he didn't feel he could do it this time around," Clymer said, declining to identify the individual.

If no Constitution Party candidate steps forward this week, the race for three county commissioner seats will be a five-way contest.

The Republican nominees are Lancaster County Controller Dennis Stuckey and Scott Martin, former executive director of the county Youth Intervention Center.

Democrats nominated incumbent Commissioner Molly Henderson and Craig Lehman, a budget analyst for state House Democrats and Lancaster city's controller.

Jere Swarr, a Rapho Township supervisor, is mounting an independent campaign.

In 2003, Clymer came the closest of any Constitution Party candidate to winning a seat on the board of commissioners. He finished the six-person race in fifth with 17,850 votes, about 3,000 behind Henderson.

In 1999, Constitution Party candidate Casey McDonald finished about 12,000 votes short of a commissioner post.

In the race for county register of wills, the Constitution Party is running insurance agent Friedrich Schrom against Republican Mary Ann Gerber.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com