Ohioans struck down a controversial ballot proposal in Tuesday’s special election to take away simple majority rule.
Issue 1 would have raised the threshold for constitutional amendments to pass from 50%+1, a simple majority, to 60%. It also would have meant any petition for a constitutional amendment to appear on a ballot would need 5% of voters from each of Ohio's 88 counties, rather than the current requirement of signatures from half of the state's counties.
The 10-day period that allows invalid signatures to be replaced with new ones on citizen-led ballot initiatives for constitutional amendments would also have been eliminated.
With all of the votes counted, Vote No had an overwhelming 57% majority of the vote compared to 43% for Vote Yes, according to unofficial results. The Associated Press's election trackers called the race for Vote No at about 8:53 p.m. Tuesday night.
So what happens now?
First, the fight continues for and against the November abortion vote.
Ohio voters will decide in November if they have a constitutional right to have an abortion, contraception, miscarriage care and fertility treatment. Sec. of State Frank LaRose announced on July 25 that the proposal to amend the Ohio Constitution to legalize and protect reproductive healthcare choices, including abortion, has enough valid signatures to make the ballot.
The direct language of that amendment states, “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”
It adds that the state can’t prohibit, interfere or penalize anyone for exercising this right.
Abortion rights groups submitted more than 700,000 petition signatures supporting reproductive freedom in the state, which they gathered in all 88 Ohio counties over the course of 12 weeks.
Of the signatures they collected, 495,938 were valid, more than the 413,487 that were required.
Each state that has put up a vote on abortion rights has kept the healthcare treatment or procedure legal.
Percentage abortion was protected in other states:
- Kentucky — 52.3%
- Montana — 52.5%
- Michigan — 56.6%
- Kansas — 59%
- California — 66%
- Vermont — 76.7%
Though lawmakers supporting Issue 1 have previously said that if the proposal was shot down in the election, they wouldn’t move it forward again, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman told a Cleveland news outlet that Tuesday's results are not the end of an effort to make constitutional amendments harder to pass in Ohio.
More than abortion
The reason voting no on Issue 1 had Democratic, Republican, third-party and nonpartisan support is because this issue is bigger than just the impact to abortion.
There are efforts afoot to raise the minimum wage, as well as redistricting reform to prevent gerrymandering, also in the works.
Municipal bonds will have a harder time getting passed. Union rights, pension funding and “medical freedom” proposals have garnered a group of people some would never expect to come together.
With the failure of Issue 1, these constitutional amendments will continue to need just a simple majority of Ohio voters to pass.
"[Citizen-led ballot initiatives are a] check and balance against the legislature so that if you have a legislature that on some issue that is important to the voters is just out of step with the voters, it's a way that the voters can overrule the legislature," NKU law professor Ken Katkin said.
