Ohio Ballot Issue 1 Megathread (August 8)

[wbrocks67]

... is Ohio going to count any more ballots? It's been over a week and I thought there was something like tens of thousands of possible late mail ballots to count?

[Person Man]

Anecdotally I always found that there was some silent reluctance towards the pro-life movement even in conservative evangelical circles. Not so much that these people supported abortion rights, but more so that they didn't see what the hell it had to do with Christianity which is what they were there to practice and study. They just keep silent about it because they don't want some church lady to start sobbing about how they're killing the babies again.

From a literal as possible sola scriptura perspective, it’s actually somewhat harder to make the pro-life case, because there are some verses in Exodus that read pretty ambivalent about miscarriages and there’s also never a word for word condemnation of abortion to be found.  The more you are willing to consider church tradition and associated writings, the stronger the pro-life case gets much stronger (Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas explicitly condemn it when interpreting Thou Shalt Not Kill for gentile converts).

Even the Roman Catholic Church didn't oppose abortion for most its history, at least in the early phases of pregnancy, and yes, abortions did happen before modern medicine, Ancient Rome was full of recipes for certain concoctions that would induce a miscarriage and they were still popular throughout the Middle Ages. At the time of the American Revolution, terminating a pregnancy was legal pretty much everywhere. Abortion only became controversial in 19th century once it became clear that it was a gateway to 20th century style "sexual freedom", which is when the Catholics started condemning it and most other churches followed suit.

The first ban on intentionally terminating a pregnancy in the US wasn't passed until 1827 (in New York, ironic by today's standards), and Catholic countries banned it around the same time as well. But fact is abortion was legal in the Puritan colonies that carried out the Salem witch trials and where The Scarlet Letter is set.

 I can buy that the the Church universally or nearly universally saw abortion as immoral but never was in any agreement of why it was until modern-ish times. You are correct about people wanting to eventually outlaw abortion because they saw it, and the lifestyle they thought it enabled, as negligent behavior against various "responsibilities". What probably allowed them to universally ban it for 100 years (Civil War to the 60s) was that people were becoming more interested in public health and the state's role in individual health outcomes and decided that the medical technology wasn't there to make abortions "safe". Sure, abortion has always been a thing, but it was considered riskier than actually having a child all the way until modern technology allowed for the opposite to be true. Its no coincidence that people started having adult conversations about abortion when they did.

[Roll Roons]

... is Ohio going to count any more ballots? It's been over a week and I thought there was something like tens of thousands of possible late mail ballots to count?

No, because some states are actually good at administering elections and don’t put themselves into a situation where there are thousands of ballots left to count over a week after Election Day.

[politicallefty]

... is Ohio going to count any more ballots? It's been over a week and I thought there was something like tens of thousands of possible late mail ballots to count?

According to the SoS (click the Ballots Cast tab), there are about 20k outstanding absentee/mail ballots and 38k provisionals. Apparently, the state accepts mail ballots up to four days after Election Day so long as they were postmarked no later than the day before the election.

[Badger]

... is Ohio going to count any more ballots? It's been over a week and I thought there was something like tens of thousands of possible late mail ballots to count?

No, because some states are actually good at administering elections and don’t put themselves into a situation where there are thousands of ballots left to count over a week after Election Day.

If that's a critique, I'll simply say that it's far far more important permit those tens of thousands of individuals every opportunity to have their voices heard at The Ballot Box rather than provide quick results for the benefit of election nerds.

[WalterWhite]

I was surprised Jefferson, Belmont, and Monroe Counties voted "YES". These have historically been the most Democratic counties in Appalachian Ohio, and with such a large margin of victory for the pro-choice side and such a huge swing towards the pro-choice side in Appalachian Ohio, I would have expected these counties to vote "NO". These counties voted for Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Brown in 2006, Obama in 2008, and Brown in 2012.

[politicallefty]

I was surprised Jefferson, Belmont, and Monroe Counties voted "YES". These have historically been the most Democratic counties in Appalachian Ohio, and with such a large margin of victory for the pro-choice side and such a huge swing towards the pro-choice side in Appalachian Ohio, I would have expected these counties to vote "NO". These counties voted for Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Brown in 2006, Obama in 2008, and Brown in 2012.

If you look at the swings starting in 2000, those counties pretty much followed the same trajectory as West Virginia and some of the bordering counties in Western PA (particularly SWPA). Brown won a larger victory in 2018 than in 2012 and they all swung against him. They've been moving rightward with no signs of letting up on the trend.

Remember though that this wasn't a straight-up abortion vote like the one in November will be.

[wbrocks67]

The Ohio SOS site says they still have nearly 60K absentee and provisional ballots to count.... I guess they're just never going to count them

[Oryxslayer]

The Ohio SOS site says they still have nearly 60K absentee and provisional ballots to count.... I guess they're just never going to count them

They are getting added now. But the newspaper sites may have stopped updating,  so check the state site if you care.

https://twitter.com/OPoliticsguru/status/1696118311312933227?t=tW7BbMqHrNclq_Ll3...

[wbrocks67]

Is the state site going to add them? Still shows the same as it did on election night

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/OPoliticsguru/status/1700655649078608242?t=D7jpKFzwdd32LI7jf...

https://twitter.com/OPoliticsguru/status/1700684653999399248?t=VLC1E1dvRN7v9S23K...

https://twitter.com/qwertz42069/status/1700379260089946469?t=Vcyhs4npPc4Xf3x5MH8...

With the final votes added and counts officially in,  now there are maps.