Rick Santorum’s campaign accused Mitt Romney of successfully attempting to “rig” the Michigan primary vote after the Michigan Republican Party voted Thursday to take away one delegate from Santorum and award it to Romney.
Romney won Tuesday’s primary by a slim margin, beating Santorum 41 percent to 37 percent, yet due to Michigan’s proportional delegate allocation, the two were awarded the same number of delegates — 15 each. The Michigan GOP Credentials Committee voted Thursday to change the allocation to 16 for Romney and 14 for Santorum.
“There’s just no way this is happening,” fumed Santorum National Communications Director Hogan Gidley in a statement. “We’ve all heard rumors that Mitt Romney was furious that he spent a fortune in his home state, had all the political establishment connections and could only manage to tie Rick Santorum. But we never thought the Romney campaign would try to rig the outcome of an election by changing the rules after the vote. This kind of back room dealing political thuggery just cannot and should not happen in America.”
Saul Anuzis, former chairman of the Michigan GOP and a member of the Credentials Committee, put out a statement explaining that the change was a result of a committee rule that had been misapplied. In February, the committee voted on the primary procedures and determined that the state’s two at-large delegates would both be awarded to the winner of the primary.
“Last night, the Credentials Committee met via teleconference and voted to apply the rules as passed unanimously on February 4th which results in the two at large delegates be awarded to the statewide winner, Mitt Romney,” Anuzis wrote in the statement.
“There were no changes in rules or procedures, the Credential Committee only ratified the existing rules as previously passed after some made erroneous claims to the media that the at-large delegates would be split,” he added.
He noted that a memo sent to the campaigns had inaccurately explained the rules, but that, “While we all regret the error in the memo, it does not change what was voted on by the committee, which was to award the two at-large delegates to the statewide winner. It was premature for any candidate to be declaring the delegate count prior to an official announcement by the Michigan Republican Party.”
The fall out from the Michigan primary has been ugly, with both the Romney and the Santorum campaigns attacking each other for dirty dealing. Wednesday, the Romney campaign attacked Santorum for robo-calling Democrats, calling it unethical and saying that he ought to return the delegates he won by getting votes from Democrats.
The Michigan Republican Party did not immediately respond to request for comment.
