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Amendment To Award Electoral Votes To Popular Vote Winner Suddenly Pulled

Certificates of votes signed in December 2018 by Ohio's 18 electors after they voted to award them to Donald Trump, who won Ohio by 8 points.
Karen Kasler
Certificates of votes signed in December 2018 by Ohio's 18 electors after they voted to award them to Donald Trump, who won Ohio by 8 points.

A proposal to allow Ohioans to decide whether the state’s 18 electoral votes should go to the winner of the national popular vote has vanished, just a week after the Presidential Election Popular Vote Amendment first surfaced.

Just hours before the panel that puts issues before voters was to consider the amendment, the group that filed the paperwork for it withdrew it. 

Many Republicans didn’t like it – including Gov. Mike DeWine.

“Well, I think it would be a really stupid idea, quite frankly, for Ohioans to say we’re not going, our vote doesn’t count, we’re just going to go with whatever the majority in the country goes for," DeWine said.

But supporters of the overall idea, many of whom are Democrats, have said a minority of voters is controlling the outcome of presidential elections.

The backers of this amendment have yet to come forward – an attorney representing the group said in a statement that time constraints and a high number of needed signatures made it impossible to meet this year’s deadline of July 3.

Contact Karen at 614-578-6375 or at kkasler@statehousenews.org.
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