How Americans Voted on 2024 Ballot Measures: Jonathan Williams on American Radio Journal

As Americans went to the polls on Election Day to choose their elected officials, they faced a range of ballot measures at both the state and local levels. Americans in 41 states voted on some 146 ballot measures, considering topics ranging from abortion and electoral processes to hunting and fishing rights and the state flag. Deep-pocketed special interests were pushing a novel and complicated election process called ranked choice voting, or RCV for short, on state ballots across the country, and it was defeated nearly everywhere it appeared. Thankfully, RCV measures failed resoundingly in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota. Unsurprisingly, the lone exception was in Washington, DC. Overwhelmingly, the preemptive prohibition of ranked choice voting passed in Missouri, while the repeal of RCV in Alaska came up just short.

In Alaska, voters approved RCV in 2020, marking the nation’s first statewide experiment with the system, and it has not gone well. The dismal results of ranked choice voting show that voters are rightfully souring on the process. In Oregon, where RCV was expected to pass with flying colors after being placed on the ballot by state legislators, Measure 117 failed by over 18 percentage points, even as proponents outspent grassroots opposition by a staggering ratio of 738 to one.

Another trend across the nation was citizen voting. Efforts to protect the voices of Americans saw voters in eight states prohibit voting by non-citizens in state and local elections. Those states include Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Education freedom was also on the ballot in several states. Unsurprisingly, teachers’ unions mobilized against parents and poured millions of dollars into ballot measure campaigns to restrict education freedom. For instance, Colorado failed to enshrine a right to school choice in their constitution. Kentucky’s constitutional amendment to allow public funding of private education failed, while Nebraska’s veto referendum to repeal public financing for private education passed.

The outcomes of these measures mean that these states are likely to begin falling behind in education. Meanwhile, more than a dozen states have rightly passed universal school choice in recent years and have already seen tremendous results for parents and children.

Tax measures were generally a mixed bag. Eight states voted on measures attempting to address increasing property tax burdens that most taxpayers are acutely aware of. All but one of these measures passed. Unfortunately, most avoided addressing the core of the property tax problem: the seemingly never-ending appetite of local politicians to spend too much money. The best way to address property taxes is to implement Truth in Taxation—a model piece of legislation from my organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council—which prohibits localities from collecting more revenue than the previous year without notifying the public and taking an honest public vote of the local officials.

Perhaps the issue on the ballot most offensive to taxpayers—and common sense, for that matter—was in Illinois, where voters advised the legislature to implement a so-called “millionaires’ tax.” This measure would only exacerbate the trend of hundreds of thousands of hardworking Illinois taxpayers voting with their feet and moving out of the Land of Lincoln in recent years.

The repeal of Washington State’s capital gains tax failed, as did the initiative prohibiting a carbon tax credit trading scheme. However, not all was lost in the Pacific Northwest, as Oregon voters shot down the Beaver State’s other destructive measure that would have implemented a massive corporate minimum tax to fund universal basic income. Speaking of UBI and taxes, minimum wage—which is simply another form of taxing businesses—will be increased to $15 per hour in Alaska and Missouri. Mandatory paid sick leave was included in both measures and was also on the ballot in Nebraska.

Finally, let’s end with some remarkably cheerful news from California, of all places. Californians voted down Proposition 32, which would have raised the minimum wage to $18 per hour. To my knowledge, this is the first time a statewide ballot measure to increase the minimum wage has failed anywhere in the last couple of decades. Even in deeply progressive California, wage or price controls like these are unpopular. Californians also voted down a repeal of the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which would have expanded local powers to enact rent control schemes.

Well, that’s a wrap on some of the major issues decided by voters in 2024 that you probably didn’t see on the cable TV news circuit. However, the long-lasting impact of these decisions—the good, the bad, and the ugly—will be felt for many years to come.