Nebraska voters will decide in November whether to add amendments to the state constitution that would protect the right to an abortion and limit the right to an abortion, the first time in state history that contradictory measures have appeared on the same ballot.
In a statement Friday, Secretary of State Robert Evnen (R) said both measures had gathered more than the 136,000 valid signatures required to qualify for November’s ballot.
One measure, the Nebraska Right to Abortion initiative, would add a new section to the state constitution guaranteeing the right to end a pregnancy until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life and health of the pregnant mother.
The second proposed amendment, the Nebraska Prohibit Abortions After the First Trimester Amendment, would add a new section stating that “unborn children shall be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters,” with exceptions for medical emergencies and pregnancies resulting from sexual assault or incest.
Current state law bars abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The word “abortion” does not appear in the state constitution.
Though it has never happened before, Nebraska state law does contemplate a situation in which conflicting measures both pass in the same election. Evnen’s office cited state law that allows the measure that receives the most affirmative votes to prevail. State law allows the governor to determine whether there is a conflict between two initiatives that pass.
That highest-vote rule is common in other states. Political scientists Daniel Smith and Catherine Tolbert found that in 24 states that allow ballot measures, 16 use highest-vote rules to determine a winner. Two other states, Maine and Washington, require voters to choose between competing initiatives.
Though it is rare for conflicting ballot measures to appear in the same year, it has happened in the past. Smith and Tolbert found 56 instances of competing proposals that appeared on the ballot between 1980 and 2006 in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota.
In 1988, California voters faced five competing initiatives supported by the insurance industry, trial lawyers and consumer groups relating to auto insurance.
A similar situation happened in 2022, when tribal governments and sports betting companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on two California propositions aiming to expand sports wagering. One measure would have allowed tribes to run sports betting, while another would have expanded sports betting beyond tribal borders; both failed by wide margins.
Nebraska becomes the 10th state with abortion-related measures on the ballot this year, and the only one with both conflicting measures and a measure to restrict abortion rights. In just the last week, elections officials in Arizona, Montana and Missouri have certified abortion rights measures for the ballot, while similar initiatives previously qualified in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, Maryland and New York.
In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, measures to protect abortion rights have passed in Vermont, Michigan, California and Ohio. Measures to restrict abortion rights have failed in Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, all red states where Republicans hold majorities in the legislature.