5 ballot measures to watch in 2024

Voters across the country will weigh in on several key issues, including abortion, state primaries and school board elections, through a slew of ballot measures next year.

Abortion rights supporters are looking to enshrine abortion protections into state constitutions in Arizona, Florida and Missouri, among others. Voters in Idaho, Colorado and Montana could decide on ballot measures that would change the way their primaries are conducted. In Florida, efforts are underway to put forward a measure that would make school board elections partisan.

Ballot measures have grown in importance in recent years, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Here are five ballot measures to watch for in 2024:

Abortion ballot measures

Abortion rights advocates are looking to amend state constitutions to enshrine abortion protections in Florida, Arizona, Missouri, South Dakota and New York, among others.

Although the measures differ in language and potential scope, they join a growing list of initiatives that address abortion access at the state level following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to abortion last year.

In Arizona, for example, abortion rights advocates are looking to change the state Constitution to note that “every individual has a fundamental right to abortion” and block the state from anything that “denies, restricts or interferes with that right before fetal viability unless justified by a compelling state interest that is achieved by the least restrictive means.”

Meanwhile in South Dakota, advocates are looking to amend the state Constitution to block the state from being able to regulate abortion before the end of the first trimester.

The measure would allow the state to regulate abortion between the end of the first trimester and the end of the second trimester “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”

“After the end of the second trimester, the State may regulate or prohibit abortion, except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman,” the proposed constitutional amendment finishes saying.

The measures come against the backdrop of a handful of wins Democrats and abortion rights advocates have seen at the ballot box. The first state to vote on abortion rights since the fall of Roe, Kansas rejected a ballot measure last year that would have given the state Legislature the authority to ban the medical procedure. Ohio became the latest state this year to enshrine abortion protections into its constitution — a major feat for Democrats and advocates in a state that has leaned red.

Open primaries

Voters in a handful of states could decide to change their election process to create open primaries.

A group in Arizona called Make Elections Fair PAC is looking to place a ballot measure before voters that would amend the state Constitution to, in part, require all candidates running for the same office to compete under one primary — meaning Republican and Democratic candidates would appear under the same ballot.

In South Dakota, a group called South Dakota Open Primaries is looking to amend the state Constitution that would require particular candidates — those running for governor, Senate, House, a legislative office or county office — to all run under one ballot for those particular offices, with the top two vote-getters competing in the general election.

The group Montanans for Election Reform, meanwhile, is looking to change the state Constitution to create a top-four primary system for specific statewide and local offices, including running for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, House and Senate offices and for state legislators, among others.

Similar initiatives are playing out in other states, like Idaho and Colorado. Last cycle, Nevadans passed a ballot measure that would require a top-five primary system for certain races like governor, attorney general, Senate and House, among others, federal and statewide races and then implement ranked-choice voting in the general election. That ballot measure must be passed one more time in 2024.

Partisan school board elections

Florida lawmakers are asking voters to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would require district school boards to be elected in partisan elections, which if passed, would be implemented starting in November 2026.

A 1998 ballot measure passed by voters made school board elections nonpartisan, but this newer ballot measure would seek to reverse that.

The ballot measure is noteworthy as 2024 presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has made education a focal point of his term, including passing legislation dubbed by critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” which restricted primary school classrooms from including gender identity and sexual orientation in classroom instruction. The law was later expanded to more grade levels.

The issue of education became a focal point during Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) 2021 gubernatorial campaign as he leaned into the issue of parental involvement in schools and classroom instruction, helping him flip the governor’s mansion red that year.

Impeachment for a statewide office

In Oregon, lawmakers are asking voters to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would establish an impeachment process for statewide elected officials.

A House joint resolution notes the state House “may deliver a resolution of impeachment to the Senate” with a two-thirds vote for “malfeasance or corrupt conduct in office, willful neglect of statutory or constitutional duty or other felony or high crime.” A conviction would subsequently require a two-thirds vote in the state Senate.

Ballotpedia notes statewide officeholders can be impeached in the state capitol save for Ohio, but this ballot measure would change that.

The Oregon Capital Chronicle noted several statewide officials have resigned in recent years after being embroiled in conflicts in office. Former state Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D) resigned earlier this year when it became known that she was doing cannabis consulting while her office was responsible for auditing cannabis company regulations, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Banning slavery, involuntary servitude in criminal punishment

Lawmakers in Nevada are looking to amend both the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution that would end criminal punishment in the form of involuntary servitude or slavery.

The state Legislature passed the measure to ban the practice in the 2021 and 2023 sessions but is now slated to go before voters.

Federally, the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment says “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Ballotpedia notes 16 states either have exceptions for slavery or involuntary servitude for criminal punishment in their state Constitutions.

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