As Ohio marijuana reform advocates await final certification of signatures for a legalization initiative they hope to place on the November ballot, an unrelated vote during the state’s special election on Tuesday is being viewed as a bellwether for the cannabis proposal’s passage.
Voters turned out in impressive numbers to defeat Issue 1 on Tuesday. The GOP-backed measure would have raised the threshold to approve constitutional amendments at the ballot from a simple majority to 60 percent—a change that could have undermined an abortion rights measure that voters will decide on in November, possibly alongside the marijuana legalization proposal.
The fact that Issue 1 was rejected by such a significant margin (43-57 percent) is telling. Typically it is the most consistent voters (older people and conservatives) who turn out for special elections during non-presidential years. But with reproductive rights under threat in the fallout of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade last year, progressive voters are motivated to get to the polls to defend those rights.
For Ohio, that will likely benefit the marijuana legalization campaign if their initiative is certified by the secretary of state’s office. It’s already widely believed that putting cannabis reform on
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