Despite much trumpeting of Democratic "victories" such as maintaining control of the Virginia governorship and defeating Armie's propositions in generally Demoract California, Democrats suffered a major defeat here in Ohio yesterday.
For those not in the know, a mostly out-of-state funded Democrat interest group calling itself Reform Ohio Now had been pushing for various changes to the Ohio elections system that would make it possible for them to actually win elections--something they've largely failed to do here for a while. Among these loophole-ridden proposals were:
Issue 2: Relax absentee voting requirements, which would have the side effect of making vote fraud easier.
Issue 3: "Get the money out of politics" by drastically reducing the amount of money donateable by private citizens. Not surprisingly, the Republican party gets far more of it's money from small donations by indiviiduals than do the Democrats.
Issue 4: Replace the current system of drawing districts with a new one designed to make districts "competitive" (read: easier for Democrats to win in). The proposed system almost completely ignored city and county boundaries, specifically stating that they should only be respected if it does not harm the "competitiveness" of the district--it effectively would have written a requirement for extreme gerrymandering into our constitution.
Issue 5: Give the Secretary of State's position as state election overseer to an unelected board of overseers with no defined funding limitations. Not only would this ammendment have taken control of the election oversight position away from Ohio voters and give legislators yet another thing to spend our taxes on frivolously, but it would have the "bonus" effect of knocking some of the wind out of current Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's upcoming Gubernatorial bid (by making his current office basically pointless).
Luckily, the people of Ohio were not so easily deceived. This transparent attempt to enable vote fraud, inhibit the freedoms of private citizens, mandate gerrymandering, and reduce the government's accountability to voters was seen for what it was. Each and every one of these ridiculous ammendment propositions failed miserably, with 60-70% of the people voting against them.
No doubt they'll try again to wreak vengance on the state that cost Kerry the election... but at least this once, Ohio showed them we're not so easily messed with. And arguably, the defeat of Democrat 527 groups' attempts to rig our elections in their favor was a far greater loss than any of yesterday's Democrat "victories" can make up for.