Nebraska voters could be the first in the country to directly choose between a 12-week abortion ban and a proposal to ensure abortion access "until fetal viability" this November.
Dueling campaigns seeking to amend Nebraska's constitution through ballot questions this fall both turned in more than 200,000 signatures to Secretary of State Bob Evnen's office on Wednesday after spending months and millions of dollars circulating rival abortion access petitions.
The either-or vote potentially facing Nebraskans this November is without precedent in the state, which has not previously had two conflicting petition efforts make the same ballot, a spokeswoman for Evnen's office said.
If both proposals are certified by Evnen's office and are both approved by voters in November, the ballot measure that receives the highest number of approving votes will prevail, the spokeswoman said.
A coalition of abortion rights advocates known as the Protect Our Rights campaign turned in 207,608 signatures, organizers said, calling it "the most successful citizen-initiated ballot campaign" in Nebraska's history.
It turned in 205,344 petition signatures to Evnen's office Wednesday, organizers said, garnering fewer signatures than the "fetal viability" petition but doing so in less than half the time abortion-rights advocates spent canvassing Nebraska.
All three abortion petitions needed signatures from 10% of Nebraska's registered voters — about 123,000 signatures — including at least 5% of voters in 38 of the state's 93 counties to qualify for the general election ballot.Â
State election officials could take more than a month to validate the signatures the two rival campaigns submitted. About 15% to 30% of petition signatures are typically invalidated, often because signees aren't registered to vote or fail to date their signatures.
But the volume of signatures that both campaigns reported turning into Evnen's office Wednesday suggests the dueling proposals both will appear on November's ballot, setting up what is sure to be an expensive general election campaign cycle that will give Nebraska voters the power to directly weigh in on the future of abortion access in the state.
The potential head-to-head matchup in November would come more than two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion that had been upheld for decades and turning the issue over to states.
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Nebraska had outlawed abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, a law that has been in place since 2010.
The rate of , which Gov. Jim Pillen called a "tremendous start to ending abortion in Nebraska."
Now, voters will likely have the chance to restore abortion access beyond even the restrictions that had been in place under Roe — or reaffirm the Legislature's decision to broadly bar the procedure after 12 weeks.
"This is not something radical that we pulled out," said Ashlei Spivey, a member of Protect Our Rights' executive committee and the director of the reproductive justice nonprofit I Be Black Girl.
"We know — and we have heard from Nebraskans through polling and being out in the community — that this is what they want," Spivey told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. "They don't want neighbors having to flee to other states to access the care that they need. They don't want government overreaching in personal medical decisions. So this is not radical — it's commonsense."
In a statement, the Protect Women and Children committee cast its own proposal as the "commonsense approach."Â
"Voters are excited to have a sensible alternative that reflects Nebraskans' commonsense approach to limits on abortion, protects women's health and relationship with their doctors, and preserves parental notification requirements that save lives and protect vulnerable minors," the committee said. The group did not host a press conference on Wednesday.
Voters won't have a chance to further restrict abortion in the state after the third abortion petition that had been circulating failed to submit enough signatures to gain ballot access.
Choose Life Now organizers did not say Wednesday how many signatures the volunteer-run campaign had gathered, but said the group "did establish a true pro-life movement" in Nebraska, pledging to try again in 2026.
"Enthusiasm was overwhelming and growing, even in the last days we encountered churches and individuals who wanted to support and sign,"Â Rose Kohl, a petition sponsor with Choose Life Now from Omaha, said in a statement, adding that organizers "look forward to our next petition drive."
The campaign — which sought to recognize “the personhood of unborn children†in the state constitution, giving fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses the same rights as people in every circumstance in Nebraska's statutes — "had limited funding and virtually no paid circulators," Kohl wrote.
Campaigns spending millions
Every successful petition effort in Nebraska in the past decade has spent $1.5 million or more on gathering signatures and campaigning.
Among the handful of petitions that circulated in Nebraska ahead of Wednesday's deadline — including campaigns seeking to ensure paid sick leave for all Nebraska workers, legalize medical cannabis and upend the state's tax system — no campaigns drew more campaign funding than the two mainstream abortion efforts.
The Protect Women and Children committee and Protect Our Rights campaign have combined to raise and spend millions of dollars on paid circulators and other expenses in recent months, including a combined $1 million in campaign expenditures in May alone.
The Protect Our Rights campaign has spent around $2.1 million since it launched its petition effort in November, according to the group's latest financial disclosure filing, which does not include spending in the month of June.
Funded in large part by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, the ACLU of Nebraska and Nebraska Appleseed, the campaign spent $521,299 in May, according to the filings.
The Protect Women and Children committee has spent $983,759 since it launched its campaign in March, including $553,703 on "field strategy and staffing" in May, according to the campaign finance filings.
The committee has been funded almost entirely by three men, including U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, Nebraska's former governor and a Republican megadonor who has personally given $1 million to the campaign, which had raised just north of $2 million through May.
Ricketts has long been a megadonor to conservative causes and campaigns in Nebraska, including petition efforts. He in the state in 2016 after lawmakers overrode his veto and abolished the punishment a year prior.
Ashlei Spivey, executive director of I Be Black Girl, speaks during a news conference on Wednesday at Cornhusker Office Plaza after Protect Our Rights turned in petitions seeking to ensure abortion access in Nebraska. The opposing group, Protect Women and Children, did not have a public event, but also turned in its petitions seeking a 12-week abortion ban.
Ashlei Spivey, executive director of I Be Black Girl, speaks during a Protect Our Rights news conference on Wednesday at Cornhusker Office Plaza in Lincoln.