Ohio has rejected a Republican initiative to make it harder to change the state constitution — a move seen as a defeat by anti-abortion groups.
The Republican-controlled state legislature had hoped to raise the bar for constitutional amendments to 60 percent, rather than a simple majority.
It was widely seen as a move to derail a planned referendum to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution.
President Joe Biden called it a victory for democracy and women.
Mr Biden said the Republican-backed measure was “a blatant attempt to weaken the voice of voters and further erode women’s freedom to make their own health care decisions”.
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down women’s nationwide right to abortion a year ago, Ohio banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy — though that is currently on hold after a legal challenge.
Pro-choice groups in Ohio are planning to use the November election to overturn it, getting the right to abortion enshrined in the Midwestern state’s constitution.
With the majority of votes counted in the vote – known as Issue 1 – US media predicted Tuesday evening that a majority of Ohio voters would pass the constitutional amendment threshold to more than 50 percent of voters. Said ‘no’ – including in big cities like Cleveland and Columbus. About 43 percent voted in favor of the measure.
But the campaign behind the ‘No’ vote, One Person, One Vote, told POLITICO in a statement that the amendment — known as Issue 1 — was a “fraudulent power grab” to silence voters’ voices.
Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters told the Columbus Dispatch that the result was “the kind of state victory we want to see.”
More than 600,000 submitted early polls on the issue — a historically high turnout for an August election in the state.
Issue 1 may sound tedious, but it has potential implications for a rare post-summer election vote, scheduled for November, that could establish statewide abortion rights.
If the measure had passed, it would likely have blocked the abortion rights amendment, whose support would have fallen below the proposed threshold.
So was the vote on Issue 1 about protecting the Constitution, as its proponents claim, or was it really about abortion?
