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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.
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.
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.
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 ...
Wisconsin voters Tuesday voted down two referendum questions that sought to give the state legislators more power over distributing federal funding, a move that could have upended how billions of ...
[3] [4] Majority rule is the most common social choice rule worldwide, being heavily used in deliberative assemblies for dichotomous decisions, e.g. whether or not to pass a bill. [ 5 ] Mandatory referendums where the question is yes or no are also generally decided by majority rule. [ 6 ]
Financial referendums have a moderating and disciplining effect on public funds and reduce centralization of government spending. [3] Disproportionately high or unpopular expenditure will most likely not be approved by the citizens in referendums, and referendums are associated with significantly lower public expenditure and taxes.
A popular referendum, depending on jurisdiction also known as a citizens' veto, people's veto, veto referendum, citizen referendum, abrogative referendum, rejective referendum, suspensive referendum, and statute referendum, [1] [2] [3] is a type of a referendum that provides a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote on an ...