Arizona voters will decide this November whether to add abortion rights into their state constitution, a prospect that could turbocharge voter turnout in a critical battleground state in the 2024 election.
Late Monday, the Arizona secretary of state’s office announced that it had validated an estimated 577,971 signatures in support of a ballot measure, the Arizona For Abortion Access Act, to establish a constitutional right to abortion in the state.
On X, the office called the measure “the largest petition effort in Arizona history”. The measure will be listed on the ballot as Proposition 139.
Will ballot initiatives like these have any notable effect on turnout in one direction or the other?
I believe Florida also has a similar ballot initiative; I don’t know about any other states.
Here is the list
The only one in doubt of making it on the ballot is in Arkansas where the secretary of state is pulling out all the stops to invalidate the payed canvassers signatures.
In Arizona it’s going to blow up the numbers. They had to fight to repeal an 1864 law and now it’s defaulted to a no exceptions 15 week law. So yeah, it’s a big deal in Arizona and likely to give the Democrats a boost in statewide offices. The state legislature is still hopelessly gerrymandered though.