https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Kansas_Value_Them_Both_Amendment
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I do not believe that most Republicans agree with banning abortion altogether. Even though the Amendment didn't ban abortion, I think the Kansas voters saw it in those terms. The Amendment lost because all of the Left voted against it, while the Right was split. It was not a "party line" vote.
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I think the move by a number of Republican legislatures to enact total bans on abortion is bad politics that will cost the Right votes. I happen to support abortion, but only because it strongly reduces crime and other social ills. However, I think the bulk of the Right wants to see highly restricted abortion only allowed for 8-12 weeks or so, as opposed to a complete ban. So by moving aggressively with bans, the R legislatures are over-correcting and pushing a greater degree of restriction than even a lot of Republicans/conservatives agree with.
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I do not agree with the prevailing Democrat talking point that the Kansas vote signals a blue backlash against Roe being overturned. I don't think Republicans are going to change their vote in the general election over abortion, however, I do think enacting total bans will cause some drag/backlash whereas the legislatures that have capped abortions at 8-15 weeks somewhere will not see backlash as those restrictions have broad support.
Honestly, as someone from Kansas here, I definitely think a LOT of people were confused on it. Legit the "vote no" advertising was some of the most dishonest advertising I had ever seen. Every new commercial I would see on it I would literally take on the exact writing of the proposal and go through the commercial slowly and realize just how messed up that add was on completely misrepresenting it to outright claiming it was the opposite of what it actually said. One add would highlight the part about exceptions of "rape, and incest" [just highlight those words in the video] and then legit state those words meant the exact opposite of what it said in the bill. Just totally the opposite. This was one of the most common ads I saw. I legit must have seen it over 300 times no exaggeration.
On top of that, legit every single freakin' thing I did on every one of my devices had a "vote no if you vote yes it is evil" adds in front of it. I am not exaggerating even in the slightest. Every single youtube video, every single time I turned on my TV [I use a more of internet TV service] it would load up one of those ads. It was relentless.
In the other direction there was about a 3 day period I saw "Vote Yes" on it add, and it was a really lame add that I saw about 3 times over a 3 day period is all and then never again.
If I didn't educate myself on what the bill actually said, even as someone who is super anti-abortion [and I were just being lazy going off the ads to get info on the issue], I probably would have voted no based on the adds I saw cause I would almost swear it meant the opposite of what it meant.
I was also getting into constant text fights with people from Vote No groups who would text me, tell me the opposite of what the bill actually meant, and then ask what I would vote. Constantly to my phone this was happening.
I just never saw anything in the other direction correcting the issue, or how this was related to the Kansas Supreme Court why this was happening, or anything.
The OPPONENTS of the bill were called "Kansans for Constitutional Freedom" (funded by planned parenthood and other lib activists) That is a DELIBERATE MAGA-type name totally intended to confuse voters.
Totally. Most of the signs were like "Vote no to keep constitutional freedom!" in all the yards around towns. That is a good point you have. Tons of ballot confusion right there .