The Michigan GOP has allotted both of the state's popular vote delegates to Mitt Romney. Romney and Rick Santorum each won 7 congressional districts for a total of 14 delegates each. With the additional two for the popular vote the Michigan delegate count is 16-14, with Romney taking the majority.
The Santorum camp had held a conference call on Wednesday telling reporters that the delegate count would end up a 15-15 split and is now outraged at the news.
"There's just no way this is happening. We've all heard rumors that Mitt Romney was furious that he spent a fortune in his home state, had all the establishment political connections and could only tie Rick Santorum," said Hogan Gidley of the Santorum campaign. "But we never thought the Romney campaign would try to rig the outcome of an election by changing therules after the vote. This kind of back room dealing political thug-ery just doesn't happen in America - what an outrage."
Michigan Republican party officials maintain that in February during their state committee meeting they unanimously passed procedures for allocating Michigan's delegates to the National Convention.
"We agreed that if only 30 delegates would be designated as voting delegates [because of a 50% penalty from the RNC for holding the election early], the Michigan Republicans would send 2 from each congressional committee and 2 at large," said Michigan RNC committeeman Saul Anuzis. "We agreed that the two at large delegates would be taken from the top of the slated delegations as submitted by the candidate who received the most votes statewide.
Anuzis added, "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."
However Anuzis also admitted there was a discrepancy. "Regrettably, there was an error in the memo drafted and sent to the respective campaigns. There were questions raised at the time the memo was drafted as to whether the legal language used was accomplishing the goal of the committee and we were advised that it was, but now it is clear that the memo did not properly communicate the intent of the committee. The email traffic surrounding the drafting of the memo in early February makes explicitly clear what the intent of the committee was."
Anuzis concluded, "The committee convened again last night to affirm that the intent was clear and that the memo was inaccurate. That affirmation came in a 4-2 vote. 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."
Fox News Producer Jake Gibson contributed to this report
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