In the News

“To their credit, extremist politicians in Ohio recognized pretty early this year that they were deeply out of sync with their electorate [on abortion],” says Kelly Hall of the Fairness Project, a group that works on ballot measures around the country.

SARAH MCCAMMON: "I talked to Kelly Hall with The Fairness Project last night. That's a group that advocates for the use of ballot measures to advance progressive policies...

“This incredible win proves what we’ve known since Dobbs: that voters are tired of seeing their politicians fail and are prepared to take on major fights to defend reproductive freedom themselves,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a nonprofit that promotes economic and social justice issues via ballot initiatives.

Kelly Hall, executive director of Fairness Project, which helps organize ballot-measure campaigns across the country, said of Ohio’s ballot measure, “This incredible win proves what we’ve known since Dobbs: that voters are tired of seeing their politicians fail and are prepared to take on major fights to defend reproductive freedom themselves."

Democrats spent a significant amount of money in support of Issue 1; the ACLU, the Fairness Project and the Sixteen Thirty Fund contributed millions of dollars to several PACs, including Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.

Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, an organization that provides support for progressive ballot initiatives, said that the election result sent “a clear message to other extremist officials around the country that democracy will not die.”

“We are spending more time, energy and actual money trying to anticipate all the different ways that these ballot measures could be vulnerable than we ever have,” said Alexis Magnan-Callaway, communications and digital strategy director for the Fairness Project, another group that champions ballot measures.

Hall says her group is anxiously waiting to see which other states have similar measures on deck in 2024. (Arizona and Florida, where anti-abortion lawmakers have attempted to implement serious restrictions, are both possibilities.)