Election Results

Both recreational marijuana and abortion won in Ohio tonight by double digit margins, despite the best efforts of Republicans to steal the election:

Ohio voters passed a state constitutional amendment Tuesday guaranteeing abortion rights and became the seventh state to side with reproductive rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The amendment protects individuals’ decisions about abortion, pregnancy, contraception, miscarriage care and fertility treatment until fetal viability, around 22 to 24 weeks. Then the General Assembly would be allowed to regulate reproductive decisions. But women would still be allowed to get an abortion after viability if in the professional judgement of her physician it’s needed to protect her life or health.

And:

Ohioans voted to legalize recreational marijuana Tuesday, potentially setting up cannabis sales in dispensaries for adult use by late 2024.

The Associated Press declared that the proposal, state Issue 2, passed just after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday as the proposed state law was winning with more than 55% of the vote. With its passage, Ohio is now the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana.

However, top state lawmakers suggested soon afterward that the Ohio General Assembly will consider changing parts of the law law, including altering its 10% marijuana tax rate, changing allowable THC levels, and redirecting at least some marijuana tax revenue to help pay for new county jails and law-enforcement training.

That last bit means that the Republican Gerrymander controlled state legislature will attempt to gut pot legalization despite the will of the voters.

Meanwhile in Virginia, right-wing nut-job Governor Glenn Younkin just got his ass handed to him by voters who are not amused by his attempts to cosplay the Handmaiden's Tale giving the Democrats control of both state houses:

Virginia voters resoundingly rejected Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s costly efforts to take control of the General Assembly in Tuesday’s elections, according to unofficial results — flipping the House of Delegates to Democratic control and preserving a blue majority in the state Senate that can block his conservative agenda and prevent Republicans from tightening limits on access to abortion.

Democrats’ sweeping victories amounted to a sharp setback for Youngkin as he seeks to raise his national profile as a potential last-minute presidential contender and seemed to fit with a national trend that saw Democrats rally around the issue of protecting abortion rights. In Ohio, voters decisively approved a measure to build abortion access protections into the state constitution, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won reelection after hammering his Republican opponent for supporting the state’s near-total ban on abortions.

About the only bad news from elections this far is that Maine's privately held utilities managed to spend a proposal for a state run power utility into oblivion, which lost by more than 2:1:

Maine voters on Tuesday rejected an effort to replace Central Maine Power Co. and Versant Power with a new electric utility overseen by an elected board, giving the unpopular utilities a political victory.

The no side of Question 3, the highest-profile referendum among the eight questions on Tuesday’s ballot, had 68 percent of votes to 32 percent for the yes side when the Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ called the race at 10:03 p.m. Tuesday.

It was a political victory for CMP and Versant, whose parent companies poured nearly $39 million into saving their businesses in a campaign that was fronted by notable political figures. Our Power, the political group that backed the referendum, was outgunned financially, spending only $1.2 million over the course of their race.

The for profit utility model is, particularly following the deregulation in the early 1990s, corrupt, and does not serve the public.

Still, a good night.