Past Year Referendums: 2023

See our home page for upcoming referendums.

We also offer Future Referendum Ideas — creative ideas to research and develop.

See also Past Referendums: 2020 and Past Referendums: 2022. There were none worth reporting for 2021.

 

 

on BALLOT: November 7, 2023

Vermont Referendums

See our page on State Constitutions and Abortion for more information about what’s happening around the U.S.

Of interest:

Open Letter from Black Pastors

Problems at Planned Parenthood – Ohio page

Abortion isn’t Freedom for Women

Setting aside the violence (and therefore lack of equal protection) done to unborn children, a point which proponents of this measure steadfastly ignore, the rhetoric they use about women also steadfastly ignores harm done. Here are some of the Consistent Life Network’s blog posts that explain this. They can offer good ideas for opponents of this measure to use in their work:

The Myth of Sexual Autonomy 

Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women

How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture

The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook

Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation

 

 

on Ballot: November 7, 2023

Alabama Referendums

See the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission Fact Sheet on Question 6. Excerpt from the Fact Sheet:

Why are we voting on this?

In 1820 when Maine separated from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and became a state, its new Constitution included Article X, Section 5 that said, in part:

The new State shall, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made for that purpose, assume and perform all the duties and obligations of this Commonwealth, towards the Indians within said District of Maine, whether the same arise from treaties, or otherwise . . .

This is the only section of Maine’s Constitution that mentions the “duties and obligations” Maine inherited as regards the Wabanaki people within its borders. In 1876, the Constitution was amended to remove that language from printed copies. Maine’s current Constitution reads, in part:

Sections 1, 2 and 5, of Article X of the Constitution, shall hereafter be omitted in any printed copies thereof prefixed to the laws of the State; but this shall not impair the validity of acts under those sections; and said section 5 shall remain in full force, as part of the Constitution, according to the stipulations of said section, with the same effect as if contained in said printed copies.

A “yes” vote on Question 6 would cancel the 1876 amendment and restore the language of original Sections 1, 2, and 5 of Article X to printed copies of the Constitution.