Ohio Issue 1

[Bobby Brown]

Ohio voters squash heroic GOP efforts to diminish voting power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/us/ohio-election-issue-1-results.html

[rajncajn]

You have to create an account to read,  so I found another article. Honestly,  I don't know enough about Ohio's laws, proposed laws, fight for abortion or whatever, nor do I have any business telling Ohioans what laws they make. If anyone was trying to limit what the people of Ohio can or cannot bring up for a vote, then I agree,  that should be voted down. So, good for them.

[stevegrab]

I will try to summarize things, from a local perspective, and with some of my own bias.

Current system to get a citizen initiated amendment on the ballot required signatures from something like 5% of the number of votes in the last governors in half of the states 88 counties. They also have a grace period, I think 10 days, to gather more if they are close. (A recreational marijuana initiative fell short initially by about 600 petitions, then turned in another 6000 during the grace period.)  Once on the ballot, the amendment would pass with a simple majority, 50% plus 1. These current rules were passed in the early 1910s. There have not been that many proposed amendments, and only about 20% are passed. But many of the recent ones went against the desires of the GOP (medical MJ, gambling, etc.)

The change targeted several things. First off they would need those # of signatures from each of the 88 counties, not just half. Requiring a lot more work to gather them, and the potential that just one county can stop something if nobody there agrees with it. The second piece was eliminating the grace period. And the biggest thing was requiring 60% to pass the amendment. 

The GOP have complete control of the state, all state wide offices, super majority (well over 60%) in the legislature and a pretty big majority of our US House members. And the state Supreme Court, with a new Chief Justice that less moderate than their predecessor (who voted against GOP led plans on redistricting last year.) Somehow we still have one DEM in the US Senate, Sherrod Brown is up for re-election next year. But the GOP could see the polls indicating that things like abortion and recreational marijuana have pretty high support, above 50% but not quite over 60%.  So of course the required number to pass something was changed, in a special election, that had to be approved by the legislature, after they stopped having August special elections due to the cost and low voter turnout. You know a lot of changing of the rules in the 12th hour to try and prevent the will of the people.

Now having said all that, I did some reading yesterday when somebody online mentioned Florida and changing their constitution. Their rules are pretty similar, 5-8% votes from last POTUS election, from half their districts (legislative, voting ??) but they do require 60% to be passed in the election. Most in Ohio would not have a problem if it were 60% al along, but this attempt to change it, with abortion rights and other issues likely to be on the November ballot, ramming it thru now with all the work arounds was a no go for many, including moderates, independents and some Republicans. We will see how the actual votes go in November, and if Ohio returns to being a swing state or remains pretty red. 

This was a clear power grab, many in the GOP involved with it would say so in various venues, possibly not expected to be made public. But that didn't help the. There were millions spent, mostly from the two sides of the abortion issue. 

[Bobby Brown]

2 minutes ago, stevegrab said:

 

This was a clear power grab, many in the GOP involved with it would say so in various venues, possibly not expected to be made public. 

Read that voting for this election was almost double that of the 2022 election which had House, Senate, and Governorships on the ballet?  Woah....

My thoughts. The modern day GOP offers little substantive policy-wise to most independent voters beyond the ones who buy into their BS culture wars/social war stuff like Trump made hey with and Desantis is implementing in Florida.  The GOP base is becoming more of a minority over time.  Lucky for them they have gerrymandered the crap out of districts in their favor for far more federal representation that actually exists relative to voting and wishes of their constituents.  What the GOP attempted in Ohio was similar in that light and a failed attempt to game the system further.  

[stevegrab]

1 hour ago, Bobby Brown said:

Read that voting for this election was almost double that of the 2022 election which had House, Senate, and Governorships on the ballet?  Woah....

My thoughts. The modern day GOP offers little substantive policy-wise to most independent voters beyond the ones who buy into their BS culture wars/social war stuff like Trump made hey with and Desantis is implementing in Florida.  The GOP base is becoming more of a minority over time.  Lucky for them they have gerrymandered the crap out of districts in their favor for far more federal representation that actually exists relative to voting and wishes of their constituents.  What the GOP attempted in Ohio was similar in that light and a failed attempt to game the system further.  

I think that was either reported wrong, or you got the details wrong. There was a high turnout, almost 700,000 early votes (mail in ballots or in person) that was more than the May primary turnout in 2022. Not sure if maybe that was the stat which was double. I know many voted by mail in 2020, fewer did in 2022.

The 2022 general election (Gov, House and Senate) had over 4 million voting. This election had a bit over 3 million, still really good voter turnout for a single issue special election. My polling place was pretty quite (more workers than voters) but considering it took more time to get checked than to cast my ballot nobody should be there long. 

The GOP has gone off the rails, it started with Tea Party and got worse with Freedom Caucus. But now the MAGA group won't even tolerate people in the party that dare to say Trump is bad or wrong. I think many must have left the party entirely. Certainly very different from past decades. They will need to cut their ties to Trump at some point.

The populated/urban counties went heavily on the NO side. Those numbers could not be canceled by those in rural areas even if some went as high as 75% on the YES vote. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/08/us/elections/results-ohio-issue-1.html