Voting "NO"

There will be a special election in Ohio on August 8th for a proposed amendment to the constitution of the state of Ohio.  Since I will be in Mexico on election day, this past week I drove to downtown Cleveland to the Board of Election to cast an early ballot.

The proposed amendment would change the rules for amendment referendums.  It would become more difficult to put such issues on the ballot, and it would require a supermajority of 60% for approval.  It is backed by the Republican party and the governor, although a couple of former Republican governors have publicly opposed it.  The backers deny it, but it is widely viewed as an attempt to prevent voters from protecting abortion rights at the ballot box.

What is interesting... and which shows the hypocrisy of our politicians... is that the legislature last year eliminated special elections in August.  They said that special interest groups try to put through issues in the summer when voters are not paying attention.  Yet here our legislators are pulling the same shenanigans, hoping that voter turnout will be low.  Hopefully their tactics backfire.  In my area, the yard signs opposing Issue 1 far outnumber those supporting it.  And I have read that an unusually large number of people in the state have turned out for early voting.