Before Ohio voters cast their ballots and decide the fate of a proposed constitutional amendment that would radically change the Buckeye State's handling of abortion and parental rights in November, Ohio will vote on a ballot question on August 8, 2023 that will determine how easy it is to amend the state constitution in the years ahead.
In the final days before next week's special election, the organization Protect Women Ohio (PWO) is surging $5.5 million worth of ads into the Buckeye State that include $4.5 million for statewide TV ads and $1 million for radio and digital ads that will run through August 8 — all urging Ohioans to vote "yes" on Issue 1 in order to protect Ohio's constitution.
In one TV spot, PWO makes the case for a higher threshold and emphasizes the importance of parental rights with Cincinnati mother and doctor Vivina Napier:
As Townhall has reported previously, "Issue 1" set to be put to voters next week deals with the threshold necessary to amend Ohio's constitution. Despite opposition from Democrat organizations which prefer to have outside groups — such as Planned Parenthood or the ACLU — able to swoop in and tweak the state constitution with a simple majority — those same entities require a greater consensus in order to amend their own organization's bylaws.
Another TV ad from PWO focuses on the need to raise the threshold to amend Ohio's constitution to 60 percent — a level used internally by those leftist organizations but one they've now decided to hypocritically call "un-democratic" when Ohio looks to use the same — with Columbus mother April Hunter:
Protect Women Ohio is making the multi-million dollar push in the final week before voters will decide whether to better protect its state constitution from changes as polling shows a statistical tie between the "yes" and "no" camps on Issue 1.
According to Ohio Northern University's Institute for Civics and Public Policy (ICAPP) poll from the second half of July that has a +/- 3.7 percent margin of error, support for Issue 1 sits at 42 percent while opposition to Issue 1 was 41 percent. The ICAPP poll release noted that "perhaps unsurprisingly, Democrats and Republicans are almost equally split on the issue, with 56% of Democrats opposed compared to 53% of Republicans in support.
Despite previous August elections being "notorious" for low turnout according to ICAPP, Issue 1 is "getting a great deal of attention" from voters with more than seven-in-ten saying they have "paid at least some attention, making the outcome difficult to predict."
Beyond this November's vote on a radical amendment its proponents say is merely about putting the supposed "right" to an abortion — but actually rolls back health and safety standards for abortion, removes most if not all limits until birth, and essentially ends parental rights when it comes to the care of children including in situations involving abortion and irreversible biology altering "treatments" — other issue groups are already looking to make a move in Ohio to take advantage of its low threshold for constitutional amendments.
Even Cleveland's mayor said recently that, if Issue 1 fails in next week's special election, Democrats could launch an attempt to undermine Second Amendment rights by pursuing constitutional amendments that would require just 50 percent-plus-one to approve the changes.
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