Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a closely watched proposal known as Issue 1 that would've made it more difficult to amend the state constitution, delivering a crucial victory to pro-abortion rights supporters ahead of a crucial November vote.
needed to land the abortion access measure on the fall general election ballot.
A volunteer helps voters cast their ballots during a special election for Issue 1 in Columbus, Ohio, on Aug. 8, 2023.GOP state lawmakers have touted the 60%-majority threshold as crucial for protecting the Ohio Constitution from well-funded, out-of-state interests that seek to"enshrine their social preferences and corporate motives" in the document.running for the U.S. Senate"This is 100% about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.
The amendment would allow the state to prohibit abortion after fetal viability, which it defines as"the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures."
Ohio's Issue 1 not only sought to raise the threshold for passing state constitutional amendments, but would have elevated the standard to place a citizen-initiated amendment on the ballot. The amendment required that any petition filed after Jan. 1 be signed by at least 5% of the electors of each of Ohio's 88 counties, based on the total number of votes cast in the last governor's race.
Ohio is the only state this year where voters weighed changes to the rules governing proposed constitutional amendments — and where the issue of abortion rights will directly appear on the ballot. But other states haveIn Arkansas and South Dakota, legislative measures that would've imposed the supermajority threshold for the adoption of constitutional amendments both failed.
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