Voters in Ohio went to the polls to decide whether to approve a measure known as Issue 1 that would raise the bar for constitutional amendments on the ballot. In the ultimate irony, the vote against changing the amendment process exceeded the 60% supermajority that the special election was seeking to require in the first place.
One part of the proposal that wasn’t getting as much attention is that it upped the requirement for ballot measures from having to get signatures in 44 districts (half of them) to needing signatures in all 88. That was to try and suppress grass roots efforts from even getting on the ballot. Such an undemocratic bunch of chucklefucks.
Holy shit. That would have meant almost no grassroots ballot measures would get off the ground. People would be forced to hire groups all across the state to drive and get signatures from random rural fuck off counties.
That’s a bingo.
terrifying. Here in Aus my state requires a simple majority. There would be riots, good on you Ohio.
I believe the term is ratfuckers.
Ratfucker Chucklefucks.
I live where IN, OH, and KY meet. ‘Pigfuckers’ would be closer to the truth, but I won’t quibble.
(Source: gigging musician who sees ‘closing time’ on the reg.)
This is what angered me the most about this issue. I’m happy my fellow Ohioans were able to see this for the power grab that it was.
Did they sneak it in as part of issue 1?
It was always part of Issue 1. The 3 big changes for issue 1 were:
Change the number of counties requiring signatures for ballot measures from 44 (half the counties in Ohio) to 88 (all of the counties in Ohio). If I remember correctly, that’s 5000 signatures from each county.
Remove petition curing period so that if some counties fell short of the required number of signatures or if some signatures were rejected or disputed for whatever reason, there would be no time to get more. I think the current curing period is a week.
Require a super-majority (60%) for a ballot measure to pass, rather than a simple majority (>50%).
To me, the least troubling of these was the super-majority part that’s been so hyped up, because the first 2 changes would have made it near impossible for voter-led initiatives to even get on the ballot to begin with. The only ballot measures we’d ever have a chance to vote on would be whatever the state house deemed worthy. All to prevent a ballot measure this November that would allow abortions for non-viable fetuses.
Regarding point 2, it’s interesting to note that the cannabis organization initiative fell short by nearly 700 signatures just a couple of weeks ago. During that curing period nearly 7000 signatures were obtained.
This initiative easily had enough support to get put on the ballot, but issue 1 sought to make it so bills in this situation would be dead in the water. An active subversion of the will of the people.