Last week, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed state lawmakers to tighten restrictions on abortion.
by nearly 20 percentage points, almost a mirror of Republican Donald Trump's statewide margin over Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to repeal a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, the threat of new restrictions in the state galvanized Democrats and independents more than anticipated. At the same time, Republicans showed less interest in turning out to support the measure.
"The anti-abortion politicians have just overplayed their hand on these bans," said Tamarra Wieder, director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates in Kentucky, where another abortion measure will be on the ballot in November. The latest AP tallies show that more than 922,000 votes were cast by Kansas voters on the abortion referendum. That’s roughly twice as many voters as turned out for the state’s previous midterm primary election in 2018, and it’s about as many as turn out for Kansas’ midterm general elections in some years. Overall turnout — 48% of registered voters — outpaced the 34% turnout for the 2020 presidential primaries.
That effort helped attract an unusual variable in Kansas primaries: independent voters. That group is eligible to vote on referenda but not for candidates running in any party primary. But campaign ads emphasized that "no affiliation" voters could indeed vote on the abortion question. It worked: Around 184,000 more votes were cast for the abortion amendment than voted for governor, a likely barometer to measure their portion of the electorate.
Abortion-rights advocates said the decision to strike down Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that recognized a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, energized many voters who had assumed abortion access was safe."It was such a beacon of light in this moment," said Helen Shumaker, director of state abortion access at the National Women’s Law Center, of the Kansas vote. "I think there is energy around ballot measures for the foreseeable future.
But getting measures on ballots without going through a state legislature can be difficult. The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which advises liberal groups on initiative campaigns, advises the process could take three years.In half of the states, including Kansas, only lawmakers can put propositions on the statewide ballot.
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