Methodology

How entries on this site are sourced, written, labeled, updated, and corrected. Every rule here is applied to every measure page.

Sourcing hierarchy

Sources are preferred in this order. A lower tier is used only for material a higher tier does not publish, and it is cited as itself — never restated as if it came from the state.

1. State election authority. The secretary of state or state elections division: certified ballot text, qualification status, official voter guides, certified results. Once a measure is qualified, on the ballot, passed, or failed, at least one state election authority source is required on its page.
2. Other primary state records. Legislative text and enrolled bills, official fiscal notes from legislative fiscal or budget offices, attorney general title-and-summary documents, and court orders affecting a measure.
3. Campaign committees and named organizations. Used only as the source of what those groups themselves argue, and always attributed to them by name.
4. Established nonpartisan reference and news reporting. Used for context and for pointers to primary documents, never as the sole basis for a factual claim about ballot text, fiscal impact, or results.

Every measure page renders its sources as visible links. A measure with no citable source is not published.

Plain-language summaries

Each measure carries a short summary written for a voter who has never seen the measure before. The rules:

• Describe what the measure would change and what happens if it passes or fails. Nothing else.
• No advocacy language, no recommendation, no adjectives that imply a verdict.
• Prefer everyday words; define a term of art the first time it is unavoidable.
• Where the ballot text is ambiguous or contested, say so and link to the document rather than resolving it here.

Summaries never replace the official ballot text. The verbatim certified wording is reproduced on every measure page once the state publishes it.

Fiscal impact

Fiscal figures come from the official fiscal analysis published by the state — a legislative fiscal office, budget office, or the equivalent. They are reproduced or closely paraphrased and marked as the state's estimate, not this site's. Where no fiscal note has been issued, the page says so rather than estimating. Fiscal impact is shown in its own callout so it is never buried inside prose.

Arguments for and against

Arguments are summaries of positions taken publicly by named proponent and opponent organizations, presented side by side and attributed. They are selected for what the campaigns themselves lead with, not for what is most persuasive. Where an official voter guide publishes arguments, that guide is the source of record. This site does not add arguments of its own and does not rebut them.

Status labels

Each measure carries one status, drawn from a fixed list, shown as a labeled tag with an icon so the label never depends on color alone:

• Gathering signatures — a petition is circulating; the measure has not qualified.
• Qualified for the ballot — signature or legislative requirements are met.
• Certified — the state has certified the measure and its ballot text.
• On the ballot — the measure appears on ballots for the named election.
• Passed — approved by voters.
• Failed — rejected by voters.
• Withdrawn — pulled, disqualified, or removed before the election.

Status follows the state's own determination. Where a court has changed a measure's standing, the order is cited on the measure page.

Results

Vote totals are published only from certified results reported by the state election authority. Percentages are shown as text and in a labeled bar that carries the same numbers to assistive technology. Unofficial election-night counts are not published.

Topic labels

Topics are applied by this site to group related measures across states. They come from a fixed list and are a navigation aid only — they are not a legal classification and are not assigned by any state. A measure can carry more than one.

Update cadence

Entries are reviewed against their sources on a recurring schedule and again whenever a measure changes status, receives a fiscal note, is certified, or is decided. Every measure page shows the date it was last reviewed. A stale date means the page has not been re-checked since then, not that nothing has changed.

Known limits

• Coverage is statewide measures only; local measures are out of scope.
• A state appears here only once its data has been verified against primary sources.
• Ballot text can change up to certification; the page reflects the most recent certified text available at the last review.
• Summaries condense long legal text and can never be a complete account of a measure. Read the linked ballot text before voting.

Correction policy

Errors are treated as defects, not as opinions. This site does not currently operate a public inbox or correction form, so there is no channel to submit a report through. What follows is how an error is handled once it is identified, so a reader can judge the site by a stated standard rather than by a promise.

How a correction is handled

• An error is checked against the primary source before anything on the page changes.
• A confirmed factual error is corrected, the source list is updated if the original citation was wrong, and the page's last-updated date changes.
• A correction that materially changes what a measure would do is noted on the measure page rather than silently replaced.
• A proposed change to an argument is evaluated against whether a named organization publicly made it and whether it can be cited. Disagreement with a measure is not a correction.

This site does not accept paid placement, sponsored entries, or edits from campaigns beyond correcting the record of what they themselves have published.