FEW people have had a more tumultuous 18 months than Nebraska’s ten death-row inmates. In May 2015 the Nebraska legislature voted to abolish capital punishment, which would have converted their sentences to life imprisonment. The governor, Pete Ricketts, vetoed the legislation but was overridden. He then poured $400,000 of his family’s money into financing a referendum to reinstate the death penalty, which appeared on the ballot on November 8th and passed with 61% of Nebraskans’ support.

The proposition was one of three pro-death-penalty measures on state ballots. Two passed with ample margins, and prospects for the third look promising. In Oklahoma, a state that attracted fierce criticism for botching a lethal injection in 2014, voters backed a measure to give capital punishment constitutional protection. Progressive California has more condemned inmates than any other state; voters there rejected a proposition to repeal capital punishment. Though it has yet to be certified, another measure that aims to speed up executions seems likely to triumph. According to Mike Ramos, the district attorney for San Bernardino County who championed that bill, “Even in a deep blue state like California, most people still feel the only justice for the worst of the worst is the death penalty.”

Yet polls show that capital punishment currently enjoys its lowest levels of support in four decades. Actual executions have also declined nationally (see chart). In 1999, 98 convicted criminals were executed. Last year just 28 were. Nebraska has not actually executed anyone since 1997, while California last did so in 2006.