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Helaine Timonere
Ohio voters have defeated Issue 1, according to a race call by the Associated Press on Tuesday night. The no vote rejects a proposed constitutional change that would have made it harder to pass future amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
Nazek Hatasha, policy affairs manager for the Ohio League of Women Voters, said some poll workers had turned away voters over confusion about a photo ID requirement. That was also part of the law that banned most August special elections.
Hatasha said there was a problem with signage for curbside voting at many polling places, so voters who needed assistance were confused about where to park or how to get that service. And she said there were issues with lines at some polling places in some urban areas, especially where precincts had been moved or consolidated.
It was known going into this election that some areas would be short on poll workers, since the state had said it hadn't reached its poll worker goal. Hatasha said throwing in the new voter ID law made it especially difficult.
Even so, the weekend before early voting began, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a primary backer of Issue 1, said he "wouldn't be surprised" if turnout was similar to last year's legislative primary. The turnout in that August 2022 vote was 7.9% statewide.
In Ohio, abortion is legal until 22 weeks, although Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, signed a bill into law in 2019 that outlaws abortions once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, usually at about six weeks into a pregnancy, without exceptions for rape or incest. The new law has been blocked by state courts while litigation continues.
CBS News projected Tuesday night that Ohio's Issue 2, on legalizing recreational marijuana, will also pass. The issue allows adults over 21 to legally purchase, possess and grow marijuana for recreational use.
A ballot measure in Colorado, Proposition II, would allow the state to keep any revenue that exceeds official projections from tax increases on tobacco, cigarettes and nicotine, and require Colorado officials to spend those funds on preschool education. If the measure is not approved, the state must refund excess revenue to wholesalers and distributors.
Another Maine ballot measure would remove a constitutional provision that a federal court has already found unconstitutional, a state provision barring people who are placed under guardianship because of a mental illness from voting.
Currently, homeowners may deduct $40,000 from the appraised value of the home to calculate the homeowner's state tax burden. This measure would increase that figure to $100,000, in light of soaring home prices in Texas in recent years.
Voters will decide Nov. 7 whether to approve Issue 1 and Issue 2, along with a range of other local races and levies. Issue 1 would enshrine the right to an abortion and other reproductive health care in the state constitution. Issue 2 is an initiated statute that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older.
Issue 1 would enshrine in the state constitution the right to an abortion up until viability, which is when a fetus can survive outside the uterus with reasonable measures. It also states that there's a right to access contraception, miscarriage care, fertility treatment and continuing a pregnancy.
Critics say so, because the measure uses the term "individual" or "pregnant patient" instead of "woman." Supporters say they chose that word to be inclusive of transgender and nonbinary people. The amendment itself does not expressly mention parental consent.
Ohio currently requires minors to get their parents' approval, and judges will ultimately decide if that law violates the amendment, should it pass. Legal experts are mixed on how this could turn out. Children generally have fewer rights than adults, and some attorneys don't expect a Republican-leaning state Supreme Court to greatly expand those rights.
This is another talking point among the issue's opponents. Under the proposal, abortions after viability would be allowed to save the pregnant patient's life or health. That decision would be made by the person's doctor.
Public use beyond that is less clear. Under the proposal, using marijuana in "public areas" would land someone with a minor misdemeanor. But it also says property owners and "any public place" could decide for themselves whether to accommodate marijuana use.
Since Issue 2 is an initiated statute, lawmakers are free to change or toss out the version that voters approve. But even though GOP leaders disapprove of recreational marijuana, a total repeal seems unlikely. They may instead look at the revenue distribution or impose additional requirements.
I see that Microsoft has decided to kill all versions of Home Edition of Office products that I purchased. After the Updates yesterday, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint all fail to load with an error stating that Office 365 is being updated, and then stops with an Application Open error. I guess I will have to disable updates on my other laptop.
Republicans also attempted to force proponents to collect more signatures, tried to toss the measure out and crafted their own ballot language that Issue 1 backers criticized as unfair and inaccurate.
President Joe Biden applauded Issue 1's victory Tuesday night, saying "Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide."
Throughout the campaign, Issue 1 opponents hammered the message that the constitutional amendment was too far-reaching and extreme for voters here. They claimed it would impact everything from a requirement that parents sign off on minors' abortions to transgender medical care and abortions late into pregnancy.
Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens promised Tuesday night to push back against the new constitutional amendment: "The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life. This is not the end of the conversation."
In Ohio, strategists tried to sidestep a direct vote on abortion rights like the one that took place on Tuesday. In Virginia, the popular Republican governor sought to embrace a showdown over the issue -- while trying to redefine the terms of a polarizing debate. And in Kentucky, a rising-star Black Republican ran for governor defending his state's abortion ban while opening the door to new exceptions.
Election Day 2023 instead continued a losing streak for conservatives on abortion-related issues that began virtually the moment the Supreme Court tossed out Roe v. Wade last year -- extending through states that are blue, red and decidedly purple.
In Republican-leaning Ohio, voters comfortably approved an amendment to the state constitution establishing a right to an abortion, ABC News projected. That will effectively override a GOP-passed ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy that had been tied up in legal challenges.
That result would shelve the bill that Youngkin campaigned on -- a proposal he called a \"reasonable\" measure to largely ban abortions beyond 15 weeks -- and likely quiet presidential buzz around the Virginia governor.
In solidly Republican Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was projected to win reelection on Tuesday while attacking his state's no-exemptions abortion ban as extreme. That law went into effect despite voters' rejection of a constitutional amendment that sought to do the same thing.
A word of caution: The scattered races that drew national attention this year did so for a variety of reasons. Many turned on intensely local dynamics that are hard to extrapolate beyond a state or legislative district's borders.
Ohio voters joined those in California, Michigan and Vermont in enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions. Voters in Kansas, Montana and Kentucky have also rejected roughly opposite efforts that would have banned abortion in the wake of the Dobbs ruling.
Those votes are fueling efforts to place abortion on the ballot in other states including Arizona, Florida, Missouri and Nevada next year. (Ohio Democrats may wish that the constitutional amendment there instead came up for a vote next year, with the presidential race and incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown on the ballot in 2024.)
The results in Ohio showed how thoroughly the statewide electorate can be remade depending on the issues at stake. Exit polls showed that voters on Tuesday night actually supported President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump by a 45-43% margin in 2020 -- even though Biden lost the state 53-45. Self-described liberals made up 34% of the electorate, a margin unmatched in exit polls in the state going back nearly 40 years.
In that state, Republicans had led a proposed change to the rules to make it harder to pass a state constitutional amendment, only to fall far short on that over the summer -- and then lose on the abortion issue itself on Tuesday. Voters were also simultaneously projected to endorse legalization of recreational marijuana, a move also opposed by conservatives.
Also having a less-than-stellar night? Youngkin, whose national profile has been raised with his efforts to rally his state behind the abortion restrictions he sought to sell as a \"reasonable\" middle-ground stance. Along the way, he pointedly refused to entirely rule out a 2024 presidential run, while making clear that he was flattered by the attention and eager to see his governing concepts adopted beyond his home state.
As the dust clears from Tuesday, the GOP's difficulties in messaging on abortion are only outlined more starkly. And for all the political woes faced by Biden and national Democrats, their party showed an ability to still pull out surprising wins when the issues frame up in their favor.
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