Ballot Measures Preview 2008
October 28, 2008 - Jennie Drage Bowser
Voters will do more than pick a president this year. They'll decide a wide array of ballot measures, touching on everything from pregnant pigs to taxes to renewable energy. Billions of dollars are at stake in the 36 states that have statewide ballot measures this year, and many voters will face long ballots and tough choices.
The total number of measures on the ballot is as follows:
59 citizen initiatives
2 popular referenda
84 legislative referenda
8 other
153 Total
Average Year for Initiatives
In 2006, we saw a near-record number of initiatives on the ballot -- a total of 76. That was the second-highest number of initiatives on the ballot in a single election in U.S. history (the highest was 87, and occurred in both 1996 and 1914).
This year's total of 59 is closer to the norm for the past decade or so. In fact, it's the same number we had on the ballot in 2004, the last presidential election year. The average number of initiatives on the ballot in a presidential election year since 1992 is 67.4, but keep in mind that that's a number that is artificially inflated by that 1996 high-water mark. If you disregard 1996, the average for that period is 62.5 initiatives per presidential election year.
Initiatives in Presidential Election Years |
|
2008
2004
2000
1996
1992
Average |
59
59
69
87
63
67.4 |
Initiatives on General Election Ballots, 1990 - 2008
Crowded Ballots in Some States
The award for longest ballot goes to Colorado this year, where there are 14 statewide questions. California and Oregon are not far behind, with 12 questions in each state. Other states with long ballots include New Mexico, with nine questions, Arizona, with eight questions, and Louisiana and South Dakota, each with seven questions.
Colorado's longest ballot came in 1912, the first election held after the initiative process was adopted. That year, there were 32 measures on the ballot, 20 of them initiatives. The longest ballot in recent memory was in 1992, when Colorado voters considered 13 questions, 10 of them initiatives (the second highest number of initiatives ever on the ballot in Colorado in a single election). This year's ballot in Colorado will bump 1992 for second place -- the total number of measures now stands at 14, and 10 of these are citizen initiatives. The total was 18, until four initiatives were withdrawn from the ballot on October 2.
Fortunately for Colorado election officials and Coloradoans who plan to vote on Election Day, nearly half of Colorado's registered voters have requested absentee ballots and will vote in the comfort of their own homes this year, according to the Denver Post. And the number of voters taking advantage of early voting -- already underway in Colorado -- is expected to be even higher than it was in 2004, when more than 20 percent of voters nationwide voted early.
This Year's Hot Issues
Unlike 2004 and 2006, there really is no theme that is dominating this year's crop of ballot measures. In November 2004, 11 states voted on same-sex marriage. In 2006, 11 states voted on property rights, eight considered same-sex marriage, and six passed minimum wage increases.
This year, some of the most controversial issues include:
Other issues on the ballot in multiple states include:
- renewable energy (California, Colorado and Missouri)
- gambling and lotteries (Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio and Oregon)
- environmental protection and land/water conservation (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota and Ohio)
- criminal justice (multiple measures in both California and Oregon)
- transportation (Alaska, California, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Washington)
- drug policy (California, Massachusetts and Michigan)
- elections (Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon)
- campaign finance reform (Colorado, Oregon and South Dakota) and
- legislatures (Arkansas, Colorado and South Dakota)
A number of key measures addressing state budgets and revenue are on state ballots this year too. These include $18.4 billion in proposed bonding in eight states, and major tax limitation initiatives on the ballot in Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oregon. The measures before voters in Massachusetts and Oregon this year will look familiar -- voters rejected virtually the same measures in those states in 2002 and 2000, respectively. The Massachusetts proposal would eliminate more than a third of the state's budget. Estimates are that Oregon's would cut state revenues by about 10 percent, and North Dakota's by about 15 percent.
More Standouts (but not necessarily trends)
Do Ballot Measures Influence Voter Turnout?
Well, yes and no. It has been pretty clearly demonstrated that in presidential election years, states with initiatives on the ballot see turnout that's about three to five points higher than states without initiatives on the ballot.
What is less clear is whether initiatives can influence who turns out to vote. In other words, can the presence of a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot cause conservatives to turn out in greater numbers, and swing a candidate election to the right? Or can a proposed minimum wage increase do the same for liberal voters and candidates? Ohio in 2004 always comes up in these conversations. In 2004, there was just one issue on the Ohio ballot -- a ban on same-sex marriage. George W. Bush narrowly won Ohio by about two points, and many pundits gave credit to the presence of the marriage issue on the ballot and its perceived motivational effects on conservative voters. While this is a popular point of view, the academic research on the question does not necessarily support it.
Also important is the fact that there is no "Ohio" in 2008 -- there is no state with a single, highly controversial issue on the ballot that falls clearly along partisan lines. Rather, most states have multiple issues on the ballot, some conservative-leaning, some liberal-leaning, and some non-controversial. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to sort out how multiple issues might affect partisan voter turnout in any state's election this year.
In a nutshell, while ballot measures can increase turnout across the board, it is not clear that they can increase turnout among a particular slice of the voting public. However, it is not likely that either side will stop trying to use ballot measures as a tool to influence voter turnout and the results of candidate races.
Contact for More Information
Jennie Drage Bowser, NCSL contact for ballot measures
