In kicking abortion rights back to the states, the right hoped that they’d see a clear path to near-total abortion bans across the country. Well, the results this week in Kansas should serve as a kick in the teeth. In a landslide victory, and with record voter turnout, Kansans overwhelmingly reje
Interestingly, in a lot of states the way to get an issue on the ballot is fairly clear and there isn't much the GOP can do to stop it. But they do have other tools. I've seen this happen when it comes to issues like right-to-work and gerrymandering. Usually one of the following happens:
The referendum gets written in a way that is incredibly confusing, so if you're pro-union and don't want right-to-work for example, the way it's worded you might end up voting the opposite of what you actually want due to it being written in a way to intentionally confuse people.
GOP-controlled legislatures can say that the people didn't understand what they were voting for and insist on a re-vote with a new amendment and put the one that passed on hold. Missouri voters voted to end gerrymandering, so the legislature said this very thing and did the thing I mentioned in #1 on the second one.
They can find reasons to not enforce it, even if it's an amendment to the state constitution. Also in Missouri, voters voted for a constitutional amendment to expand Medicaid. The governor just said "well there isn't funding for this so we're not doing it". I think the courts sided with him but I don't remember.
Relatedly: there's an anti-abortion issue on the Colorado ballot (I believe Dems control the governorship and both state chambers) with the most annoying language imaginable. It's like "do you want to make murder of children illegal from conception until they turn 18?" I really hope people aren't gullible enough to think murdering children is legal in Colorado, lol.
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Honorable mention to the times when multiple ballot initiatives about the same thing are put forth but from different groups. Each one worded just differently enough to actually do some pretty severely different things but confusingly worded/promoted to try to get people to vote for "this" one instead of "the other" one.