Below The Beltway

For the better part of a month, Rush Limbaugh has been engaging in what he refers to as “Operation Chaos.” Effectively, he’s encouraged his, mostly Republican, listeners to cross party lines and vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton with the stated goal of keeping the two remaining candidates fighting and thus causing chaos in the Democratic Party.

Apparently, some on the Democratic left aren’t too happy about it:

“Operation Chaos,” Rush Limbaugh’s campaign urging Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries, has been very effective. It doubled Republican turnout in Ohio and Texas, boosting Clinton and prolonging the Democratic race. But in Ohio, it was also almost certainly illegal.

Ohio law requires that citizens genuinely support a political party in order to vote in its primary. To change parties for a primary, a citizen must pledge, under the penalty of election falsification, that she is affiliated with the party and “supports” its principles. Lying on the pledge is a felony, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. The law also stipulates that poll workers have a “duty” to challenge voters who are “not a member of the political party whose ballot the person desires to vote.”

In Cuyahoga, Ohio’s largest county, 16,000 Republicans switched parties for the primary last month. Several did so in bad faith, without truly changing parties, according to newspaper interviews and Internet postings. The Cuyahoga Board of Elections recently voted to investigate the matter; a report is expected on March 31. Despite the massive crossover voting, however, prosecutions are considered unlikely. A spokesperson for Ohio’s Attorney General told Alternet that it is “very hard to prosecute” crossover voting cases, since the crime depends on proving a voter’s motive on Election Day.

And it gets even harder once you actually take a look at what the law actually says.

First you’ve got Ohio Code Section 3513.19:

(A) It is the duty of any judge of elections , whenever any judge of elections doubts that a person attempting to vote at a primary election is legally entitled to vote at that election, to challenge the right of that person to vote. The right of a person to vote at a primary election may be challenged upon the following grounds:

(1) That the person whose right to vote is challenged is not a legally qualified elector;

(2) That the person has received or has been promised some valuable reward or consideration for the person’s vote;

(3) That the person is not affiliated with or is not a member of the political party whose ballot the person desires to vote. Such party affiliation shall be determined by examining the elector’s voting record for the current year and the immediately preceding two calendar years as shown on the voter’s registration card, using the standards of affiliation specified in the seventh paragraph of section 3513.05 of the Revised Code. Division (A)(3) of this section and the seventh paragraph of section 3513.05 of the Revised Code do not prohibit a person who holds an elective office for which candidates are nominated at a party primary election from doing any of the following:

(a) If the person voted as a member of a different political party at any primary election within the current year and the immediately preceding two calendar years, being a candidate for nomination at a party primary held during the times specified in division (C)(2) of section 3513.191 of the Revised Code provided that the person complies with the requirements of that section;

(b) Circulating the person’s own petition of candidacy for party nomination in the primary election.

(B) When the right of a person to vote is challenged upon the ground set forth in division (A)(3) of this section, membership in or political affiliation with a political party shall be determined by the person’s statement, made under penalty of election falsification, that the person desires to be affiliated with and supports the principles of the political party whose primary ballot the person desires to vote.

Then, there’s Section 3513.20:

Before any challenged person shall be allowed to vote at a primary election , the person shall make a statement, under penalty of election falsification, before one of the precinct officials, blanks for which shall be furnished by the board of elections, giving name, age, residence, length of residence in the precinct, county, and state; stating that the person desires to be affiliated with and supports the principles of the political party whose ballot the person desires to vote; and giving all other facts necessary to determine whether the person is entitled to vote in that primary election.

How, precisely, would you prove that some resident of Cuyahoga County was lying on March 4th when they declared support for the Democratic Party and voted for Hillary Clinton ? By asking them what radio shows they listen to ?

The fact of the matter is that crossover voting like this has existed in American politics since virtually the beginning and there’s nothing that can be done to get rid of it. In fact, I would argue that we shouldn’t do anything to get rid of it because the state shouldn’t be investigation why people vote for one candidate over another. Crossover voting is a part of democracy, we just have to live with it.