Ohio activists toast to victory after ballot initiative passes
Voters cast 57 percent support in favor of Issue 1, which enshrines abortion rights in state constitution
Ohio activists celebrated Tuesday after voters cast enough ballots to pass Issue 1, an amendment that enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution.
It was a culmination of more than a year’s worth of efforts from a group of advocates that prominently featured medical practitioners as the face of the abortion rights movement. Lauren Beene, executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, said that the 57 percent vote in favor of the amendment was unsurprising given what polls had indicated going into the election.
“We had such an awesome bottom-up grassroots energy, where every single person who was engaged in this effort was incredibly valuable and valued,” Beene said. “And I think that really is what got us over the finish line.”
Beyond grassroots efforts, the campaign employed cutting-edge mobile apps like MiniVAN. It’s an app that has lists of registered voters. It was downloaded on activists’ phones, and administrators can assign volunteers chunks of houses that you can go to and input people’s responses to questions in a database, which helps inform subsequent attempts to reach out to people since you can find out how they feel about an issue.
“We knew whether or not somebody had already knocked on that door and if that door should be knocked on again, and that information was shared across the state,” Beene said. “And so, we could see exactly how many doors had been knocked down, and how many phones had been called, and all of that.”
They faced some curveballs as Republicans sought to make it harder to pass the ballot initiative. The first significant effort came during the summer when they had a vote before voters to raise the threshold to 60 percent for ballot initiatives to pass. That vote failed. As a result, the 57 percent mark they reached on Tuesday was enough for the amendment to be enacted. Then Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost changed the wording at the last moment, misleading voters on what the initiative would do.
“It didn't stop us because the people of Ohio are very resilient and do not give up when something is this important,” Beene said.
The vote-when coupled with the victories in the state house and senate in Virginia–shows the continued appeal of abortion rights to voters. Higher-ups in the Democratic party had said these elections would help determine where investments and efforts would go in the 2024 election. If pro-choice messages resonate this much, then Ohio would be a logical state for them to target.
“We're going to have to keep fighting this fight, unfortunately, but we will continue to prevail,” Beene said. “And we will regain control over our healthcare decision-making throughout the country, even if it's one state at a time.”