(The hill) – Florida’s abortion rights ballot initiative failed to pass Tuesday, leaving in place a six-week abortion ban that has helped restrict access across nearly all of the southern United States. Passing the measure required a supermajority of 60 percent, the highest hurdle in the country.
However, the initiative received about 58% support.
The measure’s defeat is a significant victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who used multiple levers of state-sponsored power to fight it.
Florida was one of 10 states to vote on abortion-related ballot measures on Tuesday. All others needed a elementary majority to pass.
The state had previously imposed a 15-week ban, but the six-week ban went into effect in May. The Florida ban effectively blocked access to abortion in the South, where neighboring states already enforce near-total abortion bans or strict restrictions.
Abortion rights advocates hoped to change that, spending nearly $100 million to do so.
The amendment would have enshrined abortion protections in the state constitution until the fetus is viable (approximately 24 weeks) and would have prevented the state from passing laws to “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion” until that point.
Before this year, abortion ballot measures have won in every state that has voted on them since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Roe v. Wade picked up. But the DeSantis administration has worked demanding to reverse that trend.
Earlier this year, the attorney general tried to prevent the measure from coming to a vote. Florida requires ballot measures to be subject to review by the state Supreme Court, and Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) argued unsuccessfully that the language was misleading.
This summer, a Republican-controlled state panel added what supporters said was a misleading financial statement to the question, saying the change could cost the state money because of lawsuits.
In September, the state agency responsible for running Florida’s Medicaid program launched a website attacking the change. At least three public institutions aired television and radio advertisements opposing the measure.
The state Department of Health threatened local television stations that ran an ad supporting the change, and a state election police unit visited residents’ homes as part of a fraud investigation related to signature collection, months after the measure was approved at nearly 1 million was verified signatures.
