Nebraskans wander around Centerfest, an artsy Omaha festival, clad in camo “Harris-Walz” and “repeal racism” hats. Then they get to the table with flyers telling them how to vote if they favor abortion rights.
They all seem to say the same thing: “It’s confusing.”
Nebraska law bans abortions after 12 weeks. An effort to create a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability, or roughly 24 weeks into pregnancy (Initiative 439) is on Tuesday’s ballot. So is a counter-proposal to both keep the 12-week limit and enshrine it in the state constitution (Initiative 434).
The version that gets the most votes in favor will prevail. That’s making backers of the version to increase access worry about what might happen if people vote for both
After the US Supreme Court struck down the Roe v Wade precedent in 2022, voters in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Vermont sided with abortion rights supporters on ballot measures.
This year, reproductive rights questions are on 10 ballots, with the choices unambiguous everywhere but Nebraska.
If having competing ballot questions works for the abortion opponents in Nebraska, the playbook could be replicated in other states on reproductive law or other initiatives put to a popular vote.
“They just, honestly, introduced it to confuse voters,” Allie Berry, a campaign manager for the pro-abortion-access group Protect Our Rights. “If it’s successful here, they’re going to try it in other states.”
Across town at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church, anti-abortion advocates were steering congregants toward the initiative keeping the 12-week limit, which includes exceptions for rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother.
The Nebraska Catholic Conference is one of many religious groups organizing on behalf of that proposal.
Religious Leaders Mobilize Voters on Abortion Initiatives
Nebraska voters favored both proposed amendments by similar margins in a late September-early survey by Midwest Newsroom and Emerson Polling. One of the striking things about that poll: “unsure” registered in double digits.
As both sides try to sway undecided voters and educate the like-minded about the yes-no combination they’ll need to remember on Election Day, Protect Our Rights has become the dominant advertiser on abortion questions.
It has put more than $5.6 million into broadcast and digital spending, compared with $2 million by the group Protect Women & Children, according to data from the tracking firm AdImpact.
Most of the funding for Protect Women and Children has comes from Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts (R) and the wealthy local Peed family. Ricketts said in a statement that he opposes the abortion rights initiative because it “allows for late term abortions.”
In interviews, activists on both sides say they’re certain the bulk of Nebraskans is on their side. And ads from both groups say their initiative will protect women’s health and freedom.
Dr. Elizabeth Constance tells voters to “get the government out of your medical decisions,” by changing the constitution to include more abortion access.
In a nearly identically shot straight-to-the-camera ad, another doctor, Catherine Brooks, advocates for the 12-week ban.
Abortion Rights Advocates Urge Voters to Limit Government
“As a mom, I want to keep the government out of the relationship between a woman and her physician,” she says.
During the in-person advocacy at St. Wenceslaus, volunteers practiced explaining how to tell the two intiatives apart, trying pneumatic devices such as “nein to nine” and be “for four” to help voters distinguish between the expansion of abortion access (Initiative 439) and the proposal to keep the 12-week limit (Initiative 434).
And at Centerfest, the Protect Our Rights volunteers tried to emphasize that voters who favor more abortion options and fewer restrictions have two things to do: support their initiative and check the “no” box to reject the other one.
Domonique James, a consultant who works with Protect Our Rights, said she worries that Nebraska will show the value of strategic obfuscation.
Foes may decide, “if we can launch a competing measure that sounds semi-like a compromise, then we can confuse the landscape and confuse voters,” she said.
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