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Initiatives and referendums—collectively known as "ballot measures", "propositions", or simply "questions"—differ from most legislation passed by representative democracies; ordinarily, an elected legislative body develops and passes laws. Initiatives and referendums, by contrast, allow citizens to vote directly on legislation.
A citizen-initiated referendum, also called an initiative, empowers members of the general public to propose, by petition, specific statutory measures or constitutional reforms to the government and, as with other referendums, the vote may be binding or simply advisory.
Referendums afford citizens greater decision-making power by giving them the ultimate decision, and they may also use referendums for agenda-setting if they are allowed to draft proposals to be put to referendums in efforts called popular initiatives. Compulsory voting can further increase participation.
These ballot questions, sometimes called referendums or initiatives, are asking voters to change the state’s constitution, and that’s too important of a decision to be left up to people in the ...
The extensive, official voting and election material regularly sent to every citizen each time – usually four times a year – compromising the pros and cons by all political proponents; here, to Berne's citizen in November 2008 about 5 national, 2 cantonal, 4 municipal referendums, and 2 elections (government and parliament of the City of ...
These questions are consequential to how we run our elections but the execution of what happens if they pass has not been thought through.
Professor Richard J. Ellis has warned of the negative consequences of the initiative process in hurting democracy. [28] In many states, signature gathering has become a niche industry in the role of politics. Proponents of initiatives, referendums, or recalls now pay individuals to collect signatures.
[11] In November 1994, Clinton publicly criticized the ballot measure, stating that it “is not the answer” to the issues stemming from illegal immigration. [12] In the days leading up to the ballot measure vote, Latino students organized large protests of Proposition 187 across the state, including a mass boycott of high schools.