Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to defeat the GOP-backed Issue 1, paving the way for the abortion rights amendment to gain approval if it’s supported by a simple majority of voters.
Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to defeat a ballot question on Tuesday that sought to increase the threshold to amend the state’s Constitution, paving the way for an abortion rights amendment to gain approval if it’s supported by a simple majority of voters.
The Republican-backed measure, known as Issue 1, failed by a nearly 20 percentage point margin with more than half of the votes counted as of Tuesday night.
Some 59% of voters chose to keep the state’s current simple majority vote rule in place for amending the state constitution, compared to about 40% who voted to mandate a 60% supermajority vote.
The Ohio special election result will have massive implications for abortion rights in Buckeye State.
In November, Ohio voters will be asked to decide whether to codify abortion rights into the state constitution.
If Issue 1 had been approved, it would have been more challenging for the abortion rights ballot measure to pass this fall.
The measure also sought to change signature collection rules for groups trying to get constitutional changes on the ballot, requiring the collection of signatures from at least 5% of voters in the last gubernatorial election in all counties, instead of the current requirement of 44 counties.
