Good News from Ohio

You may remember that in July, prior to leaving for Mexico, I made a special point of going to the Board of Elections in Cleveland to cast an early ballot again Issue 1.  

(image taken from the internet)

The referendum was at attempt by the Republican dominated legislature to make it much more difficult for voters to pass amendments to the Ohio constitution.  Signatures would be required from at least 5% of voters from all 88 counties in the state in order to get an issue on the ballot, and 60% instead of a simple majority would be required for passage.  The legislature put the issue up for a special election in August, hoping that turnout would be low.  It was a thinly veiled attempt to stop a referendum in November enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.  Proponents of the issue claimed that the issue would protect the constitution from out of state influence.  That was a hypocritical crock of (you know what), since the biggest funder of the issue was a right-wing billionaire from Illinois.

Obviously, I voted NO on the issue.  I was encouraged by the fact that early voting in Ohio had been unusually high, and the number of "NO" yard signs far outnumbered the "YES" signs.  In fact, I had never before seen so many yard signs for a ballot issue.  The attempt to sneak the issue through in August when people were not paying attention had obviously misfired.

The special election was held yesterday, and this morning I was happy to read that the issue had suffered a resounding defeat.  Although there are still votes to be counted, the unofficial count is 57% to 43% against the issue.

Good news from the state of Ohio!