COLUMBUS, Ohio – The word “abortion” won’t appear on the ballot this August.

But roughly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Ohio is gearing up for a summer election that could prove to be a major national test case for the political fight over abortion.

In the upcoming Aug. 8 election, Ohioans will be voting on State Issue 1. The measure would make it harder to amend the state constitution by requiring a 60% supermajority for proposed changes to pass, compared to the current 50% standard that’s been in place for over 100 years. Early voting is just weeks away, beginning on July 11, and voter registration for the election closes on July 10.

The success or failure of State Issue 1 could reverberate through the abortion fight not just in Ohio, but across the country.

If the issue backed by Ohio Republicans passes, it would set a much higher bar to clear for the groups pursuing an amendment in November to guarantee abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution. It also will show the rest of the country whether tightening ballot access rules could be a viable strategy for abortion opponents to head off a wave of ballot issues guaranteeing abortion rights in individual states.

Read more: Coverage of State Issue 1

Abortion opponents otherwise have seen a string of losses, with voters in California, Michigan and Vermont last year voting to expand abortion rights, and with voters in Kansas, Kentucky and Montana rejecting measures restricting them.

“I just had a conference call with National Right to Life yesterday,” Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, said in a Thursday interview. “Everybody is watching, according to them. What happens in Ohio in August and what happens here in November could be the road map to protecting life in the future.”

“I think Ohio is ground zero from where these battles go in other states,” he added. “We’ve taken losses in the other states, but no state as big as Ohio is on the chopping block right now, and I think our strategy can be duplicated in other states if we’re successful.”

“Both those who care about defending direct democracy and those care about reproductive freedom will be watching what happens in Ohio closely,” said Sarah Walker, policy and legal advocacy director for the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which is advising the campaign in Ohio working to defeat State Issue 1. “If the attempt to restrict direct democracy in Ohio fails, it could send a strong message that Americans reject attempts from politicians that abuse the levers of power to restrict any freedoms.”

State Issue 1, which also would make it much harder for amendment campaigns to qualify for the ballot by expanding mandatory signature-gathering requirements for amendment campaigns starting in 2024, would have major ramifications for any number of issues. Redistricting reform and labor regulations are just some of the potential issues that have pulled in groups to get involved on both sides of the issue.

But the election widely is being viewed as a proxy vote on abortion, given that Republicans specifically fast-tracked it to try to spoil an expected November measure that would ask voters to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. Backers of that proposed constitutional amendment are working to collect the roughly 413,000 voter signatures they need to submit before a July 5 legal deadline, and have predicted they will be successful.

John Dinan, a Wake Forest University professor who specializes in state constitutional issues, said the fight over ballot access rules pre-dates last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned national legal protections for abortion.

But, he said the push has picked up steam and taken on a new dimension with abortion being added to the mix.

“There is no doubt that the Dobbs decision is generating additional interest in state constitutional amendment rules and efforts to change the rules for qualifying and approving initiated amendments in particular,” Dinan said. “The referendum this August in Ohio on a measure to tighten amendment rules is just one of several similar votes that will be held in coming years.”

Ohio is among the 19 U.S. states where citizens can directly propose law changes, either through constitutional amendments or through what are known as initiated statutes.

At least eleven more states, with a mix of measures proposed either by citizens or lawmakers, are considering ballot issues affecting abortion rights for this year or 2024, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

Maryland is the only state so far that has one scheduled for this year, November 2023. Ohio could become the second state with a November election on abortion rights if the campaign behind the measure successfully gathers their signatures.

The August election calendar this summer is light, leaving the issue in Ohio with little competition for national resources and attention. National media already has begun taking an interest in the State Issue 1 election, with outlets including The New York Times, the New Yorker, Fox News and CBS News producing stories about the measure, all focusing on the implications for abortion rights.

‘An educational effort’

The election isn’t until Aug. 8. But Ohio has a month of early voting that begins on July 11, just a couple weeks away. That means campaigns for and against the measure soon will start to ramp up their efforts to reach out to voters.

Both campaigns have signaled they plan to have two sets of messages: one for the general electorate, and another for whom abortion rights are a key issue. There are signs that backers of abortion rights, however, are especially energized by the issue right now.

Save Our Constitution, the group working to pass State Issue 1, said during a closed-door meeting with Columbus lobbyists earlier this month that they thought their polling showed them starting off with a lead. But, they said they found that support for State Issue 1 was relatively tepid, while the opposition was intense.

Gonidakis, the official from Ohio Right to Life, meanwhile has been traveling the state in recent weeks promoting State Issue 1 to local Republican and conservative religious groups. He said he’s been getting a good response, though the issue requires explanation.

“It does take an educational effort. But if anybody on either side tells you the average person on the street gets it, they’re not being accurate,” Gonidakis said.

Groups like the conservative Ohio Christian Alliance also have been promoting the issue to their members, including publishing literature that could be used as inserts in church bulletins. The group held a banquet in Akron on Thursday where Gonidakis and two other main drivers behind State Issue 1, state Rep. Brian Stewart and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, spoke.

The Ohio Christian Alliance emphasized abortion in a recent email to its members while urging them to register to vote for the August election. It said if the November measure were to pass, numerous Ohio pro-life laws, including the state’s six-week abortion ban that’s currently on hold while it goes through a legal challenge, will be struck down.

Gonidakis said he thinks the messages will break through to anti-abortion voters, who he referred to as the “tip of the spear” for winning the August election.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Gonidakis said. “I can’t make guarantees. But I feel really good about ensuring that our people are motivated to vote.”

State Issue 1′s backers include the Ohio Republican Party, which has built up an effective voter mobilization machine over decades of successful elections.

But this summer, Issue 1 opponents have a key organizational resource: the ongoing campaign to collect signatures for the potential abortion rights amendment in November.

The abortion-rights campaign has been collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures for months. Last Monday, it gathered signatures internally for pre-verification as it prepares to send them to the state.

And while it’s hired paid signature gatherers, who often come in from out of state and leave when their work is done, the abortion-rights amendment campaign also includes a significant number of volunteers too, according to members of the coalition backing the amendment.

“From a pure volunteerism standpoint, this has been bonkers,” said Liz Walters, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Lauren Beene, a Cleveland-area pediatrician who co-founded Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, one of the key groups backing the amendment, said her campaign’s volunteers have been encouraging people to vote in August while they’ve been collecting signatures for the potential November issue.

“From what I’ve heard from our volunteers, a lot of people were aware about [State Issue 1]… That was a very popular topic of conversation while people were collecting signatures,” Beene said.

‘Slow roll’ of ads beginning

Ballot issue campaigns in Ohio typically have been accompanied by a tsunami of TV ads. That’s why they can cost upwards of tens of millions of dollars. Campaigns for and against Issue 1 have said that TV will be part of their plan for the August election.

The TV ads have yet to materialize. But a trickle of lower-cost ads have begun on both sides of the issue.

On the anti-Issue 1 side, the Ohio AFL-CIO, the state’s largest organized labor group, recently launched a series of targeted ads on Facebook. The social media platform’s ad transparency page says they’ve only cost a few thousand dollars in total, but they preview some themes voters may expect to see soon. So far, none touch on abortion.

The most heavily promoted ad features Richard Uihlein, the Illinois billionaire who gave more than $1 million to a Super PAC that ran ads pressuring GOP state lawmakers to place State Issue 1 on the ballot earlier this year. Uihlein has been involved with other state-level causes with major abortion-related undertones in recent months, including spending at least $4 million on a race to decide control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April. Uihlein’s preferred candidate lost in that race.

Another ad from the AFL-CIO emphasizes that all four living former Ohio governors – two Republicans and two Democrats – oppose State Issue 1. Current Republican Gov. Mike DeWine supports Issue 1.

Tim Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said the Facebook ads are just part of a “slow roll” that his group has planned for the coming weeks, along with direct mail, yard signs, buttons and more. The group’s opposition to Issue 1 is more about it being a “power grab,” and for now is neutral on the abortion issue. Burga said he wants to preserve organized labor’s ability to go to the ballot if the state legislature isn’t responsive to its issues.

“We’ll be making calls to union members. We’ll be using our text-message ability. We’ll be going door-to-door and at the work site. Every opportunity we can think of to communicate this to our membership base, that’s what we’ll be doing,” Burga said.

The pro-State Issue 1 campaign has not yet launched ads on TV or social media. But political literature, in the form of doorknob hanger ads, have begun to show up, according to images making the rounds on social media.

The ad warns that “The ACLU’s dangerous, anti-parent agenda” is coming to Ohio. Referencing the potential abortion amendment, the ad says it would “strip all health standards and safeguards and abortion clinics” and allow “pimps and predators” to force women into an abortion.

“Stop their anti-parent agenda. On Tuesday, Aug. 8, vote yes on Issue 1,” the literature reads.

The ad was funded by a group called the Protect Women Ohio Action, a group with a similar name to Protect Women Ohio, the main campaign opposing the potential November abortion-rights amendment. Protect Women Ohio Action is affiliated with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major national anti-abortion group, according to its state paperwork.

Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for Protect Women Ohio, called Protect Women Ohio Action a “key ally” that’s technically a different legal entity.

“They’re definitely working to get out the pro-life vote for August and November,” Natoce said.

Pro-Issue 1 business groups downplay abortion connection

The tie-in with abortion poses a fundamental challenge for the pro-State Issue 1 campaign, a coalition of business groups, socially conservative groups, business groups and Republicans.

Republican Party officials believe that few voters will turn out for the August election. That means they must mobilize their most reliable supporters to win. A key bloc for the GOP are religious conservatives and other voters who oppose abortion.

On the other hand, abortion rights are politically popular – the “yes” campaign has described the issue privately as divisive even for Republican voters – and a major funder of the “yes” coalition is the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which doesn’t weigh in on social issues.

So, leaders of the pro-State Issue 1 campaign, Save Our Constitution, have said they plan to avoid talking about abortion, while letting their individual interest groups address their members directly. They’ve also accused State Issue 1 opponents of placing a dishonestly large emphasis on the abortion issue, although Republicans also have made clear that spoiling the abortion issue drove them to schedule the election in the first place.

“They would prefer not to touch the issue,” state Sen. Rob McColley, a Northwest Ohio Republican, said during a State Issue 1 debate in Columbus on Wednesday, describing the Ohio Chamber of Commerce’s position. “They look at this as an important enough change to make to our constitution that they’ve decided to back it. They’re not going to be a part of any campaign, I can virtually assure you of that, that addresses the abortion issue. It’s not their issue.”

Steve Stivers, a former Republican congressman who leads the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, has said his members are split on the 60% requirement. But the group decided to back State Issue 1 because it would make it harder for amendment campaigns to qualify for the ballot by imposing some of the strictest signature collection requirements of any state in the country. Limiting citizen-initiated constitutional amendments has been a long-term goal for the organization.

While talking with a blogger in Columbus last week, Stivers went so far as to suggest that the 60% threshold in State Issue 1 might not apply to the abortion measure in November.

“I would make the argument that somebody could say that this thing may not pertain to the abortion issue,” Stivers told The Rooster, in a video that was posted on YouTube. “That would have to be litigated. And I’m not a lawyer, but if they change it midway through the process, that thing has been gathering signatures and been approved by the Ballot Board for months.”

Asked about his comment by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, Stivers walked it back, saying it was just a rumor he’d heard.

“You should talk to legal scholars about that theory, not me,” Stivers said in a text message. “I was sharing something I’ve heard around.”

Steven Steinglass, retired Cleveland State University professor who’s an expert on the state constitution, said his assumption is that the 60% threshold would apply to any future ballot issue, including the potential abortion-rights amendment in November.

“I don’t know who is telling the chamber that… But this looks like an effort to muddy the waters and take momentum away from the vote no on Issue 1 campaign,” Steinglass said.

Andrew Tobias covers state politics and government for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer