State Ballot Measure Monthly: April 2018
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By Ballot Measures Project staff
Sixty-eight (68) statewide ballot measures in 26 states have been certified for 2018 ballots so far.
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This year is starting out with a lower-than-average number of statewide measures certified for the ballot. The average number of certified measures for even-numbered years from 2010 through 2016 was 97 by the 15th Tuesday of the year. The average number of total statewide measures certified for the ballot by the end of the year from 2010 through 2016 was 173.
- 2010: By the 15th week in 2010, 118 measures had been certified for the 2010 ballot.
- Ultimately, 184 statewide measures were put on the ballot in 2010.
- 2012: By the 15th week in 2012, 89 measures had been certified for the 2012 ballot.
- Ultimately, 188 statewide measures were put on the ballot in 2012.
- 2014: By the 15th week in 2014, 94 measures had been certified for the 2014 ballot.
- Ultimately, 158 statewide measures were put on the ballot in 2014.
- 2016: By the 15th week in 2016, 88 measures had been certified for the 2016 ballot.
- Ultimately, 162 statewide measures were put on the ballot in 2016.
Graphing the data:
The graph below shows the number of certifications in each week of 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016, as well as the average for each week. The graph also shows 2018 certifications and will be updated each week until ballots are finalized for all states, and the last measure is certified for the ballot.
Follow Ballotpedia's Tuesday Count for 2018 to see a full list and timeline of certifications.
2018 certifications
From March 16 through April 11, 2018, the following measures were certified for the ballot on the dates listed:
March 20:
- Alabama Legislative Vacancies Amendment - This measure would amend the state constitution to allow vacant legislative seats with about a month left in the term to remain vacant until the next regular election and authorize vacant seats to be filled without an election if one candidate is running unopposed for the vacant seat. On March 1, 2018, the state Senate unanimously approved the amendment. On March 20, 2018, the state House voted 75-16 to approve the amendment, certifying it for the November 2018 ballot.
March 22:
- Alabama Ten Commandments Amendment - This measure would amend the state constitution to authorize the display of the Ten Commandments on public property, including public schools, and establish certain religious rights. The amendment also contains a provision preventing any public funds from being spent to defend the amendment in court. On February 27, 2018, the state Senate approved the amendment 23 to 3 with eight senators not voting. On March 22, 2018, the state House approved the measure in a vote of 66 to 19, thereby certifying it for the ballot. The bill passed mostly along party lines, with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing the bill.
March 23:
- Georgia Forest Land Conservation and Timberland Properties Amendment - This measure would amend the state constitution to allow the legislature to change the formula used to calculate the tax on forest land conservation use property, create a new land designation for commercial timberland, and establish a percentage of local grant assistance funding that could be retained by the state for administration. On March 1, 2017, the House of Representatives approved the measure 162 to 2. On March 23, 2018, the state Senate voted 52 to 1 to approve the amendment, sending it to the ballot.
March 26:
- Maryland Election-Day Voter Registration Amendment - The proposal would amend the state constitution to authorize the state legislature to enact a process for registering qualified individuals to vote at a precinct polling place on election day. The state House approved the amendment—House Bill 532—in a vote of 91-47 on March 8, 2018. The vote was along partisan lines, with two Republicans joining 89 of 91 Democrats to vote in favor of the amendment. On March 26, 2018, the state Senate voted along partisan lines to approve HB 532. All 33 Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, and all 14 Republicans voted against it in the Senate.
- Utah Nonbinding Opinion Question 1, 10 Cents per Gallon Gas Tax Increase for Education and Local Roads - The resolution was introduced on March 6, 2018, and passed both the House and the Senate on March 8, 2018, with votes of 55-17 and 24-4, respectively. The nonbinding opinion question would allow voters to advise the state legislature to pass or not to pass a gas tax increase of 10 cents per gallon to fund local road construction and maintenance, thereby freeing up additional funding for education. This measure is part of a compromise between state legislators and Our Schools Now, the group behind an initiative to increase the state sales tax and income tax to fund education. The compromise included two components, a bill freezing local property tax reductions and the proposed 10-cent gas tax increase. The Our Schools Now initiative would have resulted in an estimated $700 million per year in additional revenue for education. State officials estimated that the compromise plan would provide about $375 million per year in additional funding to education.
March 29:
- Arizona Adjustments to Elected Officials’ and Corrections Officer Retirement Plans Amendment - The measure would make adjustments to retirement plans based on cost-of-living adjustments, rather than permanent benefit increases, for correctional officers, probation officers, and surveillance officers (Corrections Officer Retirement Plan) and elected officials (Elected Officials' Retirement Plan). On February 21, 2018, the Arizona House of Representatives approved the amendment in a vote of 57 to zero with three members not voting. On March 29, 2018, the Arizona State Senate passed the amendment—House Concurrent Resolution 2032—in a unanimous vote of 30 to zero. HCR 2032 also withdrew an amendment from the ballot that was certified in April 2017 and was designed to address the retirement plans of correctional officers but not elected officials. The Arizona Adjustments to Elected Officials’ and Corrections Officer Retirement Plans Amendment was placed on the ballot as a replacement of the former measure.
- Georgia Establish a State Business Court Amendment - The measure would amend the state constitution to establish a state business court and establish procedures and rules for judicial selection, term length, and judge qualifications for the court. On February 28, 2018, the state House voted 142-25 in favor of it. On March 29, 2018, the state Senate amended the proposal and approved it as amended in a vote of 46-7. The House concurred with the Senate's changes on March 29, 2018, in a vote largely along partisan lines of 120 to 52; the amendment needed at least 120 votes to pass in the House.
- Georgia Marsy's Law Crime Victim Rights Amendment - The measure would add specific rights of crime victims, together known as a Marsy's Law, to the Georgia Constitution. On March 3, 2017, the Senate approved an initial version of this amendment 50 to 4, with one member excused. On March 27, 2018, the state House amended the proposal through a substitute and approved it unanimously. On March 29, 2018, the Senate voted unanimously to concur with the House changes.
- Georgia Outdoor Recreation Equipment Sales Tax for Land Conservation Fund Amendment - The measure would amend the state constitution to authorize the legislature to dedicate up to 80 percent of revenue from the sales and use tax on outdoor recreation equipment to the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund to provide money for land conservation. On March 29, 2018, the state House approved the measure 168 to 1, and the Senate approved the measure unanimously.
April 6:
- Maryland Gambling Revenue Dedicated to Education Lockbox Amendment - The measure would amend the state constitution to dedicate certain revenue from video lotteries to education as supplementary funding. This means that casino revenue couldn't be counted in the minimum education spending formulas and would have to be spent on education in addition to those minimum required levels under the amendment. The state Senate unanimously approved the amendment as Senate Bill 1122 on March 17, 2018. On April 6, 2018, the state House approved the amendment 130 to 2.
Context from past years
In 2016, there was a surge in the number of citizen-initiated measures; 76 initiatives and veto referendums were put on the ballot. This was more citizen-initiated measures than we've seen since 2006.
For initiatives to reach the ballot, they must first be filed for the various approval processes in each state and circulated for signature gathering. Only a small percentage of the initiatives filed actually make the ballot. For example, for the 2016 election cycle, an above-average 1,069 initiatives were filed with state officials. This resulted in 2016's 76 certified citizen-initiated measures, a success rate of 7 percent. Since 2010, Maryland (75%), South Dakota (73%), North Dakota (47%), Alaska (43%), and Maine (32%) had the highest success rates on average. Maryland has a veto referendum process but no initiative process; since 2010, four veto referendums have been filed, and three made the ballot.
As of March 1, 2018, 840 initiatives had been filed for circulation targeting 2018 elections. By March 1, 2016, 955 initiatives had been filed targeting the 2016 ballot. In 2010, 2012, and 2014, the average total number of initiatives filed with state officials was about 610. Of the 26 states that feature an initiative process, 2018 initiatives or veto referendums were filed for circulation in 23 of them. Topics range from marijuana legalization, minimum wage, healthcare, and right to work to taxes, education, election and campaign finance rules, and redistricting. Click on the links below to see what initiatives are circulating in your state.
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Illinois, Maryland, and New Mexico had no filings as of November 1, 2017. Maryland and New Mexico feature the veto referendum power but do not have a process for ballot initiativess. Illinois' initiative process has severe subject restrictions limiting initiatives to procedural elements of laws governing the state legislature.
On average since 2010, the most initiatives were filed in Washington, California, and Colorado, where more than 100 are filed for any given even-numbered year on average. California has seen the highest average number of successful initiative attempts. For 2018, Missouri has seen the most filings at 360—more than three and a half times the state's average of 97 since 2010. Look into the signature submission deadlines for 2018 initiatives and veto referendums to understand the timeline for each state.
The map and expandable chart below show the average success rates per year of filed initiatives and referendums (I&R) in each state over the last eight years (in even-numbered years).
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The percentage of filed initiatives that reach the ballot does not necessarily correlate with the ease or difficulty of putting an initiative on the ballot in that state. Some states make filing more difficult or more expensive, making only more serious petitioners take that first step. In some states, initiative proponents file multiple versions of substantively the same initiative and ultimately put their efforts behind one.
The data—including the specific success percentage rates—represented by the map above is available below and can be expanded by clicking show.
| Data for average even-year initiative success rates (2010-2018) | |||
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| State | Av. filed | Av. certified | Av. success rate |
| Alabama | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Alaska | 5.20 | 2.00 | 38.46% |
| Arizona | 27.40 | 1.60 | 5.84% |
| Arkansas | 7.40 | 1.60 | 21.62% |
| California | 95.00 | 10.20 | 10.74% |
| Colorado | 102.80 | 5.00 | 4.86% |
| Connecticut | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Delaware | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Florida | 29.20 | 1.80 | 6.16% |
| Georgia | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Hawaii | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Idaho | 7.80 | 1.00 | 12.82% |
| Illinois | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00% |
| Indiana | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Iowa | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Kansas | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Kentucky | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Louisiana | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Maine | 6.20 | 2.20 | 35.48% |
| Maryland | 0.80 | 0.60 | 75.00% |
| Massachusetts | 31.80 | 3.40 | 10.69% |
| Michigan | 11.20 | 2.20 | 19.64% |
| Minnesota | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Mississippi | 8.60 | 0.00 | 0.00% |
| Missouri | 184.50 | 3.20 | 1.73% |
| Montana | 18.80 | 2.20 | 11.70% |
| Nebraska | 6.60 | 0.60 | 9.09% |
| Nevada | 9.40 | 1.80 | 19.15% |
| New Hampshire | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| New Jersey | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| New Mexico | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0% |
| New York | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| North Carolina | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| North Dakota | 7.60 | 3.80 | 50.00% |
| Ohio | 21.80 | 0.40 | 1.83% |
| Oklahoma | 6.80 | 1.20 | 17.65% |
| Oregon | 63.00 | 5.60 | 8.89% |
| Pennsylvania | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Rhode Island | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| South Carolina | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| South Dakota | 8.40 | 3.80 | 45.24% |
| Tennessee | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Texas | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Utah | 2.60 | 0.60 | 23.08% |
| Vermont | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Virginia | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Washington | 128.60 | 4.60 | 3.58% |
| West Virginia | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Wisconsin | 0.00 | 0.00 | N/A |
| Wyoming | 0.60 | 0.00 | 0.00% |
| Average total | 756.20 | 59.40 | 7.86% |
See also
- 2018 ballot measures
- List of ballot measures by state
- List of ballot measures by year
- Ballot initiatives filed for the 2018 ballot
- Ballot Measure Scorecard, 2018
- Ballotpedia's Tuesday Count for 2018
Related articles
Footnotes
- ↑ The numbers in the second column indicate how many ballot measures were certified for the ballot in the last month; for example a "+3" means that three measures were certified in the last month.
- ↑ This number includes citizen-initiated measures, legislative referrals, and an automatically referred measure. So far, 15 measures have qualified for the ballot through signature petition drives.
- ↑ This was current as of April , 2018.
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