COLUMBUS, Ohio – Leading up to the special election in August, Ohio voters will hear arguments about how easy or hard it is to amend the state’s constitution here compared to other states.
Are you wondering what the facts are when it comes to how Ohio measures up?
We’ve prepared some quick, easy-to-read charts and other resources summarizing our research on that and other relevant questions leading up to Aug. 8, when voters will decide whether to make Ohio’s amendment process harder.
And as a quick reminder: State Issue 1 would amend the state constitution to require future amendments get a 60% supermajority in a statewide vote in a future in order to pass. That’s compared to the current 50% simple majority standard that’s been in place for more than a century.
It also would make it harder for potential issues to qualify for the ballot by expanding mandatory signature-gathering requirements for amendment campaigns.
The higher approval threshold would apply to any number of future issues, such as minimum wage or redistricting reform campaigns that could be coming in future years.
But Republican lawmakers specifically approved it this year to try to foil an expected abortion-rights amendment that could be before voters in November. Backers of the amendment are gathering signatures ahead of a Wednesday to submit them to the state.
Voting “yes” on the issue would approve the change, while voting “no” would strike it down.
Every state constitution is subject to change, but who can initiate revisions and how they are approved is a mixed bag.
Ohio is among the 17 U.S. states where citizens can propose constitutional amendments, according to the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan association for state governments. (We are not including Mississippi, where a 2021 state Supreme Court ruling rendered the state’s system impossible.)
Of these 17 states, three require a supermajority from voters to approve citizen-initiated amendments: Colorado (55%), Florida (60%) and Illinois (60%). If State Issue 1 passes, Ohio would be the fourth in that group.
The rest require a simple majority in all or most cases, although some states have stipulations. Nevada, for instance, requires votes in two consecutive elections to approve amendments. A chart below will explain these state-by-state rules.
When it comes to amendments proposed by state lawmakers, all but Delaware require voters to ultimately sign off on them.
Only four of the other 49 states: Colorado (55%), Florida (60%), Illinois (60%) and New Hampshire (66%) require a supermajority to approve legislatively-referred amendments, according to the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan association for state governments.
Minnesota, Tennessee and Wyoming require amendments to get an amount of votes equal to a majority of those cast in the entire election. The rest require a simple majority, although a few have special stipulations.
Then there’s the second part of State Issue 1: making amendment campaigns gather voter signatures from additional counties. These new proposed geography-based rules would set some of the toughest restrictions of their kind of any state in the country.
To qualify for the ballot, voters in Ohio must collect a number of voter signatures equal to 10% of the most recent election for governor, or around 413,000 this year. They also must collect a minimum amount from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
If approved, amendment campaigns under State Issue 1 would have to collect a minimum number of signatures from all 88 Ohio counties. That would make Ohio the only U.S. state of the three with county-based rules to require signatures from 100% of its counties.
Two states, Colorado and Nevada, have similar requirements on a legislative district basis to what State Issue 1 proposes. Colorado requires them from 33 of its 33 state Senate districts, while Nevada requires them from all four of the state’s congressional districts.
State Issue 1 does not change overall number of signatures Ohio would require, which currently is closer to the middle of the pack. For example, California and Colorado require fewer signatures while Arizona, Florida and Colorado require more.
Here’s a table of state-by-state requirements for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, listing approval requirements and geographic-based restrictions, as of January 2023. A similar chart for legislative requirements can be found here, but it’s too long to fit here.
| State | Distribution of signatures | Approval threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio - NOW | 44 of 88 counties | 50% |
| State Issue 1 | 88 of 88 counties | 60% |
| Arizona | None | 50% but 60% for tax hikes |
| Arkansas | 50 of 75 counties | 50% |
| California | None | 50% |
| Colorado | 33 of 33 state senate districts | 55%, but 50% for repeals |
| Florida | 14 of 28 congressional districts | 60%, 66% for new taxes |
| Illinois | None | 60%, or majority of votes in an election* |
| Massachusetts | No more than 1/4 from one county | 50% |
| Michigan | None | 50% |
| Missouri | 6 of 8 congressional districts | 50% |
| Montana | 40 of 100 House seats and 10 of 25 Senate districts | 50% |
| Nebraska | 38 of 92 counties | 50% |
| Nevada | 4 of 4 congressional districts | 50% in two straight elections |
| North Dakota | None | 50% |
| Oklahoma | None | 50% |
| Oregon | None | 50%* |
| South Dakota | None | 50% |
* Illinois also allows an amendment to be approved if it gets a majority of the votes cast in any given election. This most recently happened in 2022, when a workers-rights amendment passed with 58% of the vote. Even though it was less than 60%, it was approved since its “yes” votes equaled 53.4% of the roughly 4.1 million people who voted in the election.
** Oregon requires a supermajority vote for approval if a proposed amendment contains a supermajority voting requirement itself
Note: Massachusetts and Nebraska require a minimum number of overall votes, in addition to the percentage requirement, for amendments to pass.
The Ohio constitution lays out two ways that citizens can directly propose laws. Again, Ohio is in the deep minority of states for even allowing this to happen.
One is through a constitutional amendment. The other is through what’s called an initiated statute. As of right now, both require a 50% majority in a statewide vote to pass.
Since the system was set up in 1912 though, citizen groups have heavily gravitated toward constitutional amendments.
That’s because constitutional amendments are harder to undo. Any amendment requires a statewide vote, including changes to a previously approved amendment. Meanwhile, state lawmakers could change or repeal an initiated statute whenever they want without going back to voters.
Campaigns that go through the trouble of bypassing the legislature want to make sure lawmakers don’t just immediately undo their work.
Constitutional amendments also are required in certain cases, like borrowing more than $750,000 because of constitutional limits on state debts, or for making changes to processes laid out in the constitution, like redistricting rules.
That all explains why only three initiated statutes have been approved in modern state history, compared with 125 constitutional amendments.
If State Issue 1 passes, any future proposed amendments to the state constitution would have to clear the new 60% bar. That includes the amendment abortion-rights advocates are pursuing for the November election.
The higher threshold could doom that campaign. Ohio Republicans began pursuing the plan to make it harder to amend the state constitution after a string of abortion-rights wins in a handful of states last year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. None of them, though, won with more than 60% of the vote.
But the abortion-rights campaign would not be subject to the new signature gathering requirements. Those won’t take effect until 2024. Signatures must be turned into the state today to qualify for the November election.
Since 1914, when state voters approved their first citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, voters have approved 19 of the 71 amendments proposed by citizen groups.
During that time, they also approved 106 of the 157 amendments proposed by state lawmakers.
Of the 19 citizen-proposed amendments that passed, eight failed to clear 60%. Of the 106 legislative-initiated amendments that passed, 43 failed to clear 60%.
Since 2000, two citizen-proposed amendments passed with less than 60% of the vote. They are:
Since 2000, three legislative amendments passed with less than 60% of the vote. They are:
Read more on this subject here. Here’s a chart of all 50 amendments that passed with less than 60% of the vote:
| Year | How referred | Brief Description | Perecentage yes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1914 | Citizens | Home rule alcohol prohibition | 50.6% |
| 1918 | Citizens | Prohibition | 51.4% |
| 1918 | Citizens | Property tax classification | 52.5% |
| 1918 | Legislative | Property tax classification | 56.4% |
| 1920 | Legislative | Crabbe Act | 57.9% |
| 1923 | Legislative | Industrial commission authority | 52.7% |
| 1923 | Legislative | "White male" removed from voter eligibility | 56.0% |
| 1929 | Legislative | 15-mill property tax limit | 58.2% |
| 1933 | Citizens | County home rule | 53.3% |
| 1933 | Citizens | 10-mill property tax limit | 59.7% |
| 1936 | Legislative | Stockholder liability | 56.7% |
| 1947 | Legislative | Sinking fund commission expansion | 50.6% |
| 1947 | Legislative | Probate judge term limits | 55.3% |
| 1949 | Citizens | Straight-ticket voting ban | 57.3% |
| 1951 | Legislative | Multiple probate judges | 55.6% |
| 1953 | Legislative | State School Board creation | 56.8% |
| 1953 | Legislative | State militia racial integration | 58.2% |
| 1953 | Legislative | Judicial commission repeal | 59.3% |
| 1954 | Legislative | State exec officer term limits | 55.5% |
| 1955 | Legislative | Public works bonds | 56.0% |
| 1956 | Legislative | Longer state Senate terms | 57.4% |
| 1957 | Legislative | Allow vote on county charter | 51.0% |
| 1959 | Legislative | Permit GA to expand appeals court | 56.0% |
| 1959 | Legislative | Municipal utility expansion | 58.3% |
| 1961 | Legislative | Women allowed in National Guard | 50.1% |
| 1965 | Legislative | Rural judges | 52.7% |
| 1965 | Legislative | Development bonds | 56.6% |
| 1965 | Legislative | Industrial development loans | 56.7% |
| 1967 | Legislative | General Assembly redistricting | 59.2% |
| 1968 | Legislative | Highway bonds | 52.8% |
| 1968 | Legislative | Fund disposition | 54.9% |
| 1970 | Legislative | Municipal charter notices | 52.2% |
| 1973 | Legislative | Legislative reforms | 54.3% |
| 1973 | Legislative | Income Exempt from Taxation | 59.5% |
| 1974 | Legislative | Public works superintendent repeal | 59.5% |
| 1975 | Legislative | Charitable bingo | 53.8% |
| 1976 | Legislative | Tax language cleanup | 56.3% |
| 1976 | Legislative | Elector qualification | 56.8% |
| 1976 | Legislative | Estate tax rebate | 57.6% |
| 1976 | Legislative | Tax language cleanup | 58.8% |
| 1978 | Legislative | Prison labor regulation | 54.2% |
| 1978 | Legislative | County charter votes | 55.5% |
| 1980 | Legislative | Property tax classification | 53.0% |
| 1982 | Legislative | Low-interest financing for homebuyers | 57.4% |
| 1990 | Legislative | Housing loans and grants | 52.9% |
| 2000 | Legislative | Clean Ohio Fund | 57.4% |
| 2005 | Legislative | Third Frontier Fund | 54.1% |
| 2006 | Citizens | Minimum wage increase | 56.6% |
| 2009 | Citizens | Casino gambling legalization | 53.0% |
| 2015 | Legislative | Anti-monopoly amendment | 51.3% |
Generally, an amendment is more likely to do better if it draws no serious opposition. This tends to mean that less controversial proposals do better, although that’s not always the case.
Since 2000, Ohioans have approved 20 of 33 proposed amendments that made the ballot. They include:
Going a little further back in history, here are a few of the 117 amendments in state history that have gotten more than 60% of the vote:
Here’s a chart detailing all constitutional amendment votes since 2000:
