On February 22, the Ohio Supreme Court forwarded all the evidence collected in O’Farrell v Landis, 2012-2151, to the Clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives. O’Farrell v Landis is an election contest over which candidate won the 98th district House race last November. The Ohio House will now proceed to decide which candidate should be seated. The official election returns show that Republican Al Landis won by eight votes over Democrat Josh O’Farrell, but O’Farrell has presented evidence which he believes shows that the returns are faulty. Under the Ohio Constitution, each house of the legislature is the judge of contested elections for itself. The Ohio House has not been asked to adjudicate an election contest in over 100 years, although the Ohio Senate has done that in more recent years.

The Connecticut Joint Government Administration and Elections Committee will hear SB 432 on February 25. This is the National Popular Vote Plan bill. It is sponsored by three Democratic State Senators, Gary LeBeau, Andrew Maynard, and Steve Cassano.

On February 23, the Michigan Republican Party state convention endorsed a proposed bill to let each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector. The vote was 1,370-132. See this story. The proposed bill doesn’t exist yet, but Representative Pete Lund (R-Shelby Township) will probably now introduce it.

The newspaper story says Michigan has been using the at-large system to elect presidential electors for 175 years, but that is not correct. In 1891 the Michigan legislature passed a bill to let each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector. That was in place for the 1892 presidential election, but afterwards the state gave up the plan. The result in 1892 was that Republican presidential nominee Benjamin Harrison received 9 electoral votes in Michigan, and Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland won 5 electoral votes. If the district plan had not been in effect, Harrison would have won all Michigan’s electoral votes. However, the Michigan system did not change the identity of the winner; Cleveland beat Harrison overwhelmingly in the electoral college, 277 to 145, so he didn’t need his 5 electoral votes from Michigan. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.