Give Ohio Republicans this: They plan. That’s how they win elections.

In 1949, Republicans feared so-called "straight-ticket" voting might unseat U.S. Sen Robert A. ("Mr. Republican") Taft. In straight-ticket voting, an Ohioan, by marking just one "x," could vote for all the Republicans or all the Democrats listed on November's ballot.

In 1950, Gov. Frank J. Lausche, a Cleveland Democrat, would run for re-election. Lots of Republicans liked him. The GOP machine feared Lausche's Republican fans might mark an "x" in the straight-ticket box atop that list headed by Lausche's name. Not only would that help him. It might replace GOP Sen. Robert A. Taft with Democrat Joseph T. ("Jumpin' Joe") Ferguson.

So, in 1949, voters, at the GOP’s behest, banned “straight-ticket” voting. And in 1950, Ohioans re-elected Frank Lausche – and Bob Taft.

Joe Ferguson might not have needed much help in losing. Among his other gems, Ferguson, asked amid the Korean War what foreign policy he favored, supposedly answered, "Beat Michigan!" Still, Republicans left nothing to chance. They seldom do.

Then in 1977, Republicans found themselves, for once, agreeing with something often said by Portsmouth Democrat Vernal G. Riffe, 20-year speaker of Ohio’s House. Riffe said, correctly, that “if Ohio Democrats turn out, we win.”

So Republicans convinced Ohio voters to ban election-day voter registration: More hoops, more jumps, fewer Democrats voting in Ohio elections. The same motive is behind GOP calls for Voter ID. Fewer Democratic voters, more Republican wins.

This campaign season, Republican scheming seems directed more at other Republicans (albeit, Republican rebels) than against Ohio Democrats.

Last fall, General Assembly Republicans passed Amended Substitute Senate Bill 193 which makes it tougher for third parties (legal term: "minor parties") to get on Ohio's ballot. (The four minor parties Ohio recognizes are the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Socialist parties)

On constitutional grounds, a federal district judge in Columbus has just killed S.B. 193, at least for this year's elections.

The bill was obviously aimed at holding down third-party voting this November by Republican conservatives who are supposedly disenchanted with Gov. John Kasich. Kasich won the governorship by just 77,000 votes in 2010. At this writing, he appears to be in good political shape. But on the Republican right, to know Kasich is not necessarily to love him. Some conservatives were stupefied because Kasich, to his credit, expanded Medicaid to help Ohio’s working poor.

Officially, of course, that wasn’t why Republicans passed Senate Bill 193. Supposedly they passed it because, due to lawsuits, Ohio for roughly eight years hasn’t had a specific third-party ballot law. But that wasn’t a problem for anybody at the Statehouse until some Republican True Believers shrieked about Kasich.

If closing such “gaps” in Ohio law were a GOP priority, Republicans would long ago have closed drive-a-truck-through loopholes in Ohio’s payday-loan law. Five years ago – and with a “yes” vote of 64 percent – voters said they wanted a tough pay-day loan law. GOP lawmakers instead lolled in their hammocks.

A quick look suggests the last time a third-party candidate won a statewide race in Ohio was in 1912, when a Bull Moose Progressive, Akron’s Reuben Wanamaker, won an Ohio Supreme Court seat. It also appears the last time voters elected a third-party Ohio House candidate, also a Bull Moose Progressive, was just before World War I (ironically, in GOP House Speaker William Batchelder’s Medina County). That is, it’s the governor’s race, not down-ticket contests, that concerns the GOP.

So, as in 1949 and 1977, now in 2013 and 2014, that’s the Republican way in Ohio. Talk taxes. Talk guns. But if the voters don’t cotton to your candidates, don’t pick other candidates. Try to pick safer voters.

Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.

To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@gmail.com, 216-999-4689