Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Republicans in South Carolina have defied US President Donald Trump ahead of the November midterm elections by blocking a measure to redraw voting maps in their favour.
They allowed the state’s only Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Jim Clyburn, to keep his seat intact, foiling Republican chances of gaining another seat in the House. They cited the fact that some South Carolinians were already heading out to the polls.
With the midterms less than six months away, the two parties are locked in a fight to gain control of the House by having states redraw their voting maps, in a process known as redistricting.
“Neither my conscience nor my common sense would allow me to stop an election that is already underway,” South Carolina Republican state Senator Richard Cash said during the vote.
Despite the decision, South Carolina’s Republican Governor Henry McMaster encouraged South Carolinians to “vote confidently in a safe and secure election”. It was a second victory for Democrats, with an Alabama court also temporarily blocking voting maps that it ruled were “intentionally discriminatory”.
