If you thought Ohio’s GOP Secretary Of State Voter Suppression Jon Husted was done for after Tuesday, the crew at Plunderbund has the goods on his next move at this week’s Impact Ohio conference.
Defending his performance managing Ohio’s election, Husted argued that because of the high stakes involved with being an electoral vote-rich swing state, Ohio’s elections chief is always scrutinized and criticized. (Funny, we don’t remember that happening in 2008, but that’s beside the point).
Husted’s solution to this perceived problem of Democrats and the national media picking on him? He says we should make Ohio less important in the election by dividing up our electoral votes by Congressional district.
This is huge and should raise giant red flags. Under the current winner-take-all system, Obama won all 18 of Ohio’s electoral votes. Under Husted’s plan, 12 of those 18 electoral votes would be handed to Mitt Romney, the popular vote loser.
Yep, it’s the return of the split electoral vote. Already reality in Nebraska and Maine, for states with GOP leadership that came up big for Obama on Tuesday, splitting the electoral vote among congressional district lines where Republicans have been able to gerrymander Democrats into just a few urban districts would of course give them the lion’s share of the electoral votes no matter what happens with the popular vote state totals. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida are prime targets for this right now. Husted figures a guaranteed 12 EVs for the GOP is better than zero when it comes to Ohio in 2016.
The plan stinks to high heaven and back, and it’s clear Husted isn’t giving up his quest to turn Ohio red no matter what the people say.
What, you thought the war was over on Wednesday morning or something in Ohio? It’s just getting started.