Nebraska votes to reinstate the death penalty after the state backed Donald Trump to be President
State Senator who campaigned against the capital punishment decision says it shows Nebraska remains a "hidebound and backward state”
NEBRASKA has voted overwhelmingly to reinstate the death penalty, quashing a historic bill by politicians last year to repeal capital punishment in the state.
As Donald Trump celebrates his presidential election victory – including winning 61% of the vote in the Midwestern state – pro-capital punishment campaigners are celebrating their own triumph.
Voters living in rural areas carried the execution decision through as they voted to “repeal the repeal” by margins as large as four to one in counties outside of Lincoln and Omaha.
The result came 18 months after Nebraska became the 19th US state to abolish the death penalty punishment when lawmakers voted to override the Republican governor’s veto of a bill repealing capital punishment.
Bob Evnen, from pro-capital punishment group Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, said last year's vote had got through because politicians had made a mistake.
He told : “The Legislature made a big mistake on a very important issue.”
But State Senator Ernie Chambers, who sponsored the bill to repeal the death penalty in May last year, said the vote showed him Nebraska remains a "hidebound and backward state”.
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He said: "I have been in this activity too long to be surprised by what happened tonight.
"It will not dishearten me, it will not deter me."
And he plans to introduce a new bill in January to get rid of the death penalty.
Governor Pete Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team and an online brokerage firm, reportedly donated $300,000 of his own money to help the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty group.
His father Joe is said to have given $100,000 and his mother $25,000.
The opposing side which wanted to keep the repeal also got some high-profile support and collected $2.7million in campaign donations - including from Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon.
Since 1959 there have only been three executions in Nebraska, all three of them were killed using the electric chair.
At the moment there are 10 male inmates on death row in Nebraska.