"Crossover voting was heavy -- and maybe illegal"

OOPS! Ohio Republicans you may be in trouble with the law:

Anyone who crossed lines was supposed to sign a pledge card vowing allegiance to their new party. In Cuyahoga County, dozens and dozens of Republicans scribbled addendums onto their pledges as new Democrats.

"For one day only."

"I don't believe in abortion."

A Plain Dealer review of thousands of records showed few of those who switched were challenged by poll workers.

[...]

Lying on the pledge is a felony, punishable by six to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Election watchers said they don't know any cases that have been prosecuted in Ohio. And it's unlikely the Republican crossovers influenced the outcome since Clinton handily defeated Obama, said Edward Foley, an election-law professor at Ohio State University.

[...]

In a nutshell, here how it's supposed to work: Ohio voters are allowed to switch party affiliations on the day of a primary election but only if they sign a pledge vowing to support their new party - and mean it.

If a majority of poll workers at a precinct doubt a voter's sincerity, they can challenge the voter even if the voter signed the pledge.

In the days following the election, The Plain Dealer interviewed more than two dozen voters - most of them Republicans who crossed over to Democrats last week.

None - including five who acknowledged lying about supporting the Democrats - were challenged. And several said poll workers never asked them to sign a pledge, but gave them a Democratic ticket.

Some have been saying that it isn't right that Republicans crossed over and messed with the Democrats' primary (Hewitt was really against it and keep playing "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing") and some talk about holding elections in a "kind of reverence." I'm sorry but I don't. I look at it as my civic duty (nothing more) and believe that I owe a responsibility to society to vote for the best candidate for the job but our nominating process is messed up and the Democrats try to influence our primaries (I was really ticked off when McCain made an appeal to Democrats and Independents to vote for him in the SC primary in 2000) and now we are returning the favor. I believe that if enough mischief is made, the states will take a hard look at their primary systems and close them.

I agree with this Republican:

"I don't mind being deceptive to politicians," she said. "They are deceptive to us."

(via)