Last night Ohio had an election. There were no other elections anywhere in the US on this day and the voters of Ohio had only one thing to vote on. Residents of the Buckeye State, like myself, had to vote to preserve democracy here. The patriots won, and the fascist lost. They lost bad.

Issue One was a garbage law written up by a bunch of gerrymandered state reps and coordinated by our MAGA wanna be Secretary of State Frank LaRose. The law would have raised the threshold to amend the state constitution. Currently Ohio only needs a 50% plus one vote to pass a constitutional amendment. It has been like that for over 100 years. Issue one would also require all of Ohio’s 88 counties be represented on the petition. Right now, the law says 44 counties must be represented. Issue one also took way the time period to fix ballots with not enough valid signatures. All of these important changes to our democratic process were put to a vote in early August, a time that is notorious for low voter turnout.

Why was Issue One but forward? When the US Supreme Court decided to nuke Roe v Wade, Ohio republicans were quick to pass some of the worst laws aimed at women’s health. The other side, doctors, women, compassionate patriots, saw the success of pro abortion/women’s health electoral efforts in states like Kansas, Michigan, and Kentucky, and they teamed up to protect women’s rights in the constitution. Their group easily gathered the necessary signatures and were all set to go to the voters this November. The Ohio GOP know that the pro women’s health amendment will pass, so they came up with some new anti-democratic scheme to subvert the November vote. The state legislature waited until the last minute to place their plan on an August election and planned on low voter turnout to undermine the pro women’s health group. They thought they were being so clever.

Issue One failed, it failed big time. What the Ohio GOP never figured out is that with the need to communicate to voters on only one issue, the opposition could coalesce around a common message. Democracy was on the ballot. The GOP is trying to rig the game to make Ohio less democratic. Turnout hit records in the urban counties. The rural counties did not see huge surges in yes votes. Secretary LaRose and the state GOP lost, and it was not close. This November the citizens of Ohio will get to vote to protect women’s health with a new constitutional amendment.

The Ohio republican party is not done trying to undermine freedom. They will be back. The GOP controls everything in state government. Whenever their power is threatened, they change the rules. When voters speak, the Ohio GOP looks for ways to silence them. Secretary LaRose said this is the first battle in a longer war. He is right. Ohio and democracy may have won the opening battle, but we need to be prepared for the GOP’s next anti-democratic scheme. It is coming sooner than we think.

All that being said, this victory feels good. Democracy 1 - Ohio Fascists 0

RD

RD is the founder and Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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