Ballot Measure-o-meter

Lawmakers in Alabama are hoping to bring the People’s Tool to the state’s voters. House Bill 14 would give citizens the right to propose ballot initiatives for both constitutional amendments and general laws.

If passed, Assembly Bill 459 would require the Secretary of State to establish a process for voters to sign ballot initiative petitions online. 

A pair of measures, both referred to the November ballot by the Colorado General Assembly, would support the Healthy School Meals for All Program that was originally established by the voter-approved Proposition FF in 2022. Hunger Free Colorado estimates that the program saves a family as much as $1,250 per child every year. Due to its popularity, it has outpaced the initial cost estimates; with students’ reliance on it reportedly growing more than 30% over the previous year, the program now needs additional revenue in order to continue to serve schools statewide.

Recently passed by Ohio voters, the legislatively-referred Issue 2 extends the State Capital Improvement Program and increases its annual spending cap from $200 million to $250 million. This program provides funding to local governments (e.g. towns, counties, etc) to build or repair critical infrastructure like roads, bridges, water supply, sanitation, and more.

House Joint Resolution 87 looks to bring the People’s Tool to Texas, granting citizens the right to a ballot initiative process. Voters in the Lone Star State are currently only permitted to weigh in on legislatively-referred constitutional amendments following a 1914 election that was largely limited — both in right and access — to wealthy white male voters.

Recently passed by Arkansas legislators, Senate Bill 207 requires canvassers to remind petition signers that petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor or risk being charged with a Class A misdemeanor. Sen. Jamie Scott (D-North Little Rock) named SB 207 and similar anti-initiative proposals as being a form of voter suppression not unlike the literacy tests and poll taxes that historically targeted marginalized communities.

House Bill 45 not only prohibits any sort of indirect or direct foreign funding for ballot measures, it prohibits campaign donations from any organization or company that’s received more than $100k total from a foreign entity in the past four years. 

North Dakota’s House of Representatives is proposing a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would create a single-subject rule for all future ballot measures in the state. Advocates for direct democracy have raised concerns that the amendment would give state officials a disproportionate amount of power to approve or deny changes to the constitution and would inevitably lead to more legislative and litigation-related hurdles to passing citizen-initiated measures.

The passage of Senate Bill 73 means that citizen-led ballot initiative campaigns will now be required to publish their measure in at least one newspaper in every county in the state for 60 days preceding an election — at an estimated cost of $1.4 million.

House Bill 1205 could make it nearly impossible for grassroots groups to put an initiative on Florida’s statewide ballot: requiring ballot initiative sponsors to post a $1 million bond payable to the Division of Elections, creating a complicated signature verification process that will burden elections offices, imposing stricter deadlines on the petition process with costly fines — and more extremist restrictions. Unfortunately, an attempt by two campaigns to block the new law in court has proven unsuccessful.

This November, Mainers will have a chance to weigh in on a dangerous anti-voting initiative that would eliminate two days of absentee voting, terminate ongoing absentee status for seniors and people with disabilities, require voters to present photo ID when voting in-person or by absentee ballot, and more. Maine historically has one of the highest rates of voter participation in the nation — a distinction that could easily be threatened by passage of this initiative.

Senate Bill 22 prohibits anyone but the legislature or the Missouri Secretary of State from making edits to a legislatively-referred measure’s ballot language and gives the the state attorney general the power to appeal preliminary injunctions granted in cases where the state or a statewide official is blocked from enforcing a law or statute. The newly passed bill is already being used by Attorney General to challenge two preliminary injunctions issued earlier this year that have allowed abortion clinics to resume providing services. SB22 is currently being litigated over six named violations of constitutional law.

Senate Bill 1027 is an especially restrictive anti-direct democracy measure that severely limits how many signatures can be counted from any single county for ballot initiative petitions. The law  will take power away from rural and urban voters alike: in the state’s smallest county, for example, a maximum of 152 voters could have their petition signatures counted.

Sen. Regina Goodwin (D-Tulsa) remarked, “It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. This is not about transparency. This is about suppressing a process.”