‘We Still Think the Votes Are Out There’: Anti-Abortion Activist Refuses To Throw In the Towel After Ballot Measure Fails
An anti-abortion activist who supported a failed ballot measure in Ohio that would make it more difficult to amend the state’s Constitution insisted there were enough outstanding “Yes” votes to be counted – even after the race was called.
The rejection of Issue 1 was a win for reproductive rights advocates who are aiming to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Had it passed, the initiative would have raised the threshold for amending it from a simple majority to 60%.
Last year, Ohio’s Republican-dominated legislature and governor implemented a six-week abortion ban. However, an appeals court blocked the law. Abortion activists have already succeeded in getting the issue on the ballot in November. A majority vote in favor would establish a constitutional right to abortion. Tuesday’s vote was an attempt by conservatives to make that more difficult by raising the percentage of votes needed for passage.
Multiple outlets – including CNN – called the race, deeming Issue 1 a failure at the ballot box.
But that didn’t stop anti-abortion advocate Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, from insisting on The Source that the votes for passage were still out there. As he spoke, a graphic appeared showing his side losing by 22.6 percentage points with 38% of the vote in.
“Mike, obviously you were hoping that this was going to pass tonight,” Kaitlan Collins said. “Why did this fail?”
Here’s how their exchange went:
GONIDAKIS: Well, Kaitlin, thanks for having me on your show. Look, there’s still over 7,000 precincts that still need to have their results turned in. We’re expected another million and a half votes, so we’re not ready to call it on our side just yet. We still think the votes are out there. We’re really good at same-day voting in the Republican Party. So, we’re still holding out. We don’t believe that the race should’ve been called this early. But here we are today and, you know, the “No” side is winning, of course, but at the end of the day, we still want to count all our votes.
COLLINS: You still think there’s a chance?
GONIDAKIS: I do. Seven thousand precincts. It’s not in the nation but just in the state of Ohio. So, there is still time. We’re gonna let the process play out and then we’ll see where we’re at. But at the end of the day, we’ve been laser-focused on November since January. This was just step one in the process and we’ll be ready to go come November.
COLLINS: I’ll say, CNN knows – obviously – really accurate with these projections. We don’t make these early. We make these when we have a very good assessment of what the vote looks like on the ground.
As of this writing, Issue 1 trailed 57% to 43% with 75% of the votes in.
Watch above via CNN.
