Tuesday’s special election in Ohio saw a high turnout of voters and resulted in the rejection of a proposal to increase the margin by which a proposed state constitutional amendment would be able to pass.
The ballot asked voters to decide on Issue 1, which was created in direct response to an abortion amendment set to appear on November’s ballot. Issue 1 saw a massive amount of (largely out-of-state) funding on both sides.
The pro-Issue 1 campaign employed questionable tactics, such as disseminating a fake newspaper called “The Buckeye Reporter,” which contained factual errors—as well as flat-out lies.
The faux paper characterized all of Issue 1’s opponents as communists and allies to the LGBTQ+ community (both of which are supposed to be scary, I think). It also contained a fake mission statement for the group Red Wine and Blue, an organization by and for suburban women that gained popularity among Republicans and was a strong voice in the anti-Issue 1 movement.
Beyond “The Buckeye Reporter,” Ohioans were subjected to a vast ad presence from both sides, which included mailers, video advertisements, and a whole lot of yard signs.
In one particularly strange video ad, Protect Women Ohio claims that opposing Issue 1 is the same thing as supporting “sex changes” for children—and mentions neither abortion nor the state constitution.
However, abortion wasn’t the only topic at stake—access to democracy was, as well. Those of all partisan affiliations recognized this, with a resounding vote of “No” from voters, including a large faction of Republicans.
This comes after the Ohio voting laws were changed in January of this year, making voting significantly more difficult—especially for those who had relocated to Ohio from elsewhere.
In spring of 2022, something similar to Issue 1 happened in Kansas. Abortion had been ruled as a protected right under the state constitution in 2019, but anti-abortion advocates put a proposal on the ballot (also during an August special election, which typically have extremely low voter turnout) to not only reverse that ruling but also amend the state constitution so that lawmakers could ban abortion in the future. This proposal was rejected by nearly 60 percent of voters, causing it to fail.
Suspicious advertising tactics and sneaky special elections are nothing new for Republican lawmakers. But the results of both yesterday’s election and the 2022 vote in Kansas might provide a beacon of hope—those who oppose these measures will turn out in droves to reject them.
(featured image: jdwfoto/Getty Images)
