Ahead of a November vote on abortion rights, Republican lawmakers want voters to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution.
Ohio voters will decide Tuesday whether or not to make it harder to amend the state constitution in a special election that has tremendous implications for the fate of abortion rights in the state.
For more than a century, Ohio voters have been able to amend the state constitution with a simple majority. The measure up for a vote on Tuesday would change that threshold to 60 percent.
If voters approve the amendment, they will set a much higher bar for passing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights that is scheduled for November. Because of those stakes, Tuesday’s election has become a proxy fight over abortion.
Republicans who control the state legislature scheduled the election as abortion rights advocates gathered signatures this spring for the November measure. Republican leaders have said they wanted to make the abortion rights measure tougher to pass but also have embraced the proposal more broadly, saying changes to the state constitution should have overwhelming support. Opponents of changing the rules have called the measure anti-democratic, saying America is founded on the idea of majority rule.
Millions of dollars have been spent on Tuesday’s election and turnout has been high for an election held during a normally sleepy political season. More than 578,000 people had voted early as of Friday — more than twice as many as voted in the May 2022 primary for U.S. Senate.
Polls open Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. The measure, known as Issue 1, is the only item on the ballot.
The measure needs only a simple majority to pass and will impact all constitutional amendments on the ballot going forward, including the November abortion rights measure.
Regardless of the outcome, attention will turn immediately to the November election on abortion. Since the Supreme Court last year ended a nationwide right to abortion, voters in three states backed state constitutional amendments ensuring access to the procedure. In addition, voters in two conservative-leaning states rejected referendums that would have changed their constitutions to explicitly say they do not provide a right to abortion.
Tuesday’s vote could help foreshadow the outcome of the abortion measure in November. According to a July poll from USA Today and Suffolk University, 58 percent of likely voters supported the abortion rights ballot measure. That suggests it could pass under current rules but might fall short of the 60 percent threshold.
In recent years, Republicans in a handful of states have sought to make it more difficult to pass citizen-led initiatives after a string of liberal policies — from expanding Medicaid to raising the minimum wage — have been placed on the ballot.
