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Election Laws and Agenda Setting: How Election Law Restrictiveness Shapes the Complexity of State Ballot Measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Kerri Milita
Kerri Milita*
Affiliation:
Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA
*
Kerri Milita, Department of Politics & Government, Illinois State University, 401 Schroeder Hall, Campus Box 4600, Normal, IL 61761, USA. Email: kmilita@ilstu.edu
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Abstract

Recently, many U.S. states that allow citizen initiatives have passed laws designed to make it more difficult for an initiative to qualify for the ballot (e.g., by increasing the number of signatures required to get on the ballot), thereby making it harder for citizens to bypass the legislature and make direct changes to public policy. Such laws have reduced both the number of measures that make the ballot and the number that pass on Election Day. I show that laws governing access of initiatives to the ballot also shape the policy agenda; provisions making it harder for proposals to get on the ballot decrease the complexity of the initiatives on the ballot. As less complex initiatives are more likely to be understood by voters and voters are reluctant to vote for measures they do not understand, more restrictive laws actually increase the likelihood that an initiative will pass.

Keywords

direct democracypolitical behaviorelection rulesinterest groups and electionspolitical participationvoting behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 119 - 146
Copyright
The Author(s) 2015

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