Florida voters rejected a measure to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution, a devastating blow to advocates who had hoped to reverse the state’s six-week abortion ban and continue their now-broken streak of victories with ballot measures.
A total of ten states voted on abortion-related ballot initiatives on Tuesday; The results for the other nine will follow. Four of those states could reverse post-Roe abortion bans and restore access.
Unlike other measures, which require only a simple majority — or, in the case of Colorado, 55% of the vote — to pass, the Florida measure needed to secure 60% of the vote.
While always considered an uphill climb, the result in Florida is a bitter pill for abortion rights advocates, reversing a string of successes at the ballot box. Advocates have won a series of abortion-related ballot measures in seven states since Roe was overturned.
After the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Florida became a haven for people fleeing the abortion ban that now covers the rest of the southern US, before the six-week ban went into effect in May of this year became.
If the Florida measure had passed Tuesday, it would have protected the right to abortion until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Florida Republicans alarmed civil rights and voting rights groups by unleashing a wave of attacks on the measure. Law enforcement officials investigated people who signed a petition to get the measure on the ballot, while the state Health Care Administration Agency set up a web page attacking the amendment.