Surprising Finding in the 2024 Results: Cross-partisan Majorities Protected Democracy in Key Votes
Overview
In the aftermath of the 2024 election, some of the most concerned voices on the Left described Trump’s victory as a vote by the majority against democracy itself. Others countered that assertion, pointing to exit polls showing concern among voters on both sides that U.S. democracy is under threat, implying a difference in how, not whether, democracy needs supporting.
Into this debate, Election Reformers Network offers a piece of evidence in the 2024 election results, mostly overlooked to date, that shows a pattern of cross-partisan voting to protect or expand some important democratic rights at the state level. This pattern emerges from an analysis of 12 ballot measures that proposed changes to the powers of voters themselves. For ten out of 12 of these measures, bipartisan majorities voted to protect or expand citizen voting power and democratic institutions. While narrow in scope, this analysis counters the most pessimistic assessment that the American majority does not care about, or is not willing to stand up for, democracy.
To be clear, the overall result of ballot measures in this election is decidedly mixed. While this report addresses the pro-democracy good news from “voter power” measures, there were also significant losses in the “voting method” set of ballot measures focused on nonpartisan primaries, open primaries, and ranked choice voting. That result is a significant setback for reforms that offer promising paths to reducing polarization and broadening representation.
Those setbacks are part of the reason the 2024 election results present a daunting landscape for democracy in America. The point of this report is that the worst assessment—that the majority voted against democracy—is overstated. Moreover, the types of victories won, and the abuse of power revealed in the most important loss, all point toward the need for near-term actions that could strengthen democratic institutions and further develop cross-partisan support.
Voter Power Ballot Measure Results by Category
The 12 “voting power” ballot measures analyzed here fall into four categories:
1. Changes to the rules of ballot measures themselves (six measures)
2. Changes to campaign finance rules (two measures)
3. Proposals related to enabling or reducing voting (two measures)
4. Proposals to create new commissions involving citizens (two measures)
1. Changes to the rules of ballot measures
Nationally, 26 states allow citizens to initiate ballot measures. The remaining 24 states sometimes have measures on the ballot, but those questions are initiated by the legislatures rather than voters. In many of the 26 states, citizen ballot measures have become hotly contested politically. Prominent and divisive policy questions, like access to abortion and expansion of Medicaid, are being decided solely through ballot measures, not legislation. Likewise, the most important potential improvements to election rules and systems, reforms like independent redistricting and ranked choice voting, are also advancing primarily through ballot measures.
This dynamic illustrates the independent power of the citizenry in these states—power that many legislators, party leaders, and insiders want to curtail. To do so, state legislatures have sought changes to the rules of ballot measures to make them harder to get on the ballot and harder to pass.
The November 2024 election included six state ballot measures focused on such rule changes. (See Table 1.) Five of these measures, all placed on the ballot by state legislatures, were designed to make it harder for measures to reach the voters and become law. Proposed changes included raising the number of signatures required (Arizona), requiring an initiative to pass twice to become law (North Dakota), and allowing legal challenges to an initiative before voting (Arizona).
Four were rejected by significant bipartisan majorities. One measure, in Utah, that would have allowed the state legislature to repeal a law passed by citizens’ initiative, was voided by the state Supreme Court because of the deceptive summary of the measure written by legislative leaders. The sixth measure in this group, a citizen-initiated measure in California, would have reduced the threshold for passage of certain local bond measures. It failed. In total, five of six measures in this group yielded a pro-voter, protect-democracy outcome.
The far-right column in the chart provides a rough proxy for the degree of cross-partisan support for the outcome. Here, the percentage of votes presidential candidate Kamala Harris received in the state is compared with the percentage for the protect democracy side for the ballot measure. For the votes in Arizona and North Dakota, substantially more voters supported the pro-democracy side than voted for Harris, indicating some support for the pro-democracy side among Trump voters.
2. Changes to Campaign Finance Rules
Two states asked voters to consider changes to state campaign finance laws, and in both cases the pro-voter, pro-democracy position won. (See Table 2.) In Florida, a measure rejected by voters would have rolled back the state’s existing public financing program for candidates who agree to spending limits. The program had been approved by 64% percent of voters in 1998– and will remain in place.
In Maine, a citizen-initiated measure proposed a$5,000 limit on campaign contributions to political action committees (PACs) that make independent expenditures. This initiative addresses the well-known Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which ruled that spending on ads for or against candidates cannot be regulated if made independently from candidate campaigns. That decision has unleashed huge amounts of unrestricted election-related funding and spending. A strong majority of Maine voters (74%) approved establishing the $5,000 limit, a vote-share 21 percentage points higher than Harris’s vote share in the state.
3. Proposals related to enabling or reducing voting
A ballot measure in Connecticut asked voters whether to allow any voter to vote absentee, via a mailed ballot. Currently, the state allows absentee voting only for specific reasons, or “excuses” such as illness or travel. The result, clearly a win for voters, was 58% approval of no-excuse absentee voting, slightly above Harris’s vote share in the state. Connecticut is now the 29th state to adopt this policy.
A second measure in this category is also a win for voters, but with some ambiguity. The Arizona legislature placed a measure on the ballot to end the current practice of voters deciding, in a yes or no vote, whether to retain judges at the end of their judicial term. In Arizona, judges for the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and Superior Courts in larger counties are appointed by the state’s judicial nominating commission for specific terms, but continue to serve beyond the term if voters approve retaining them. The measure was defeated by a huge margin, 78%-22%, clearly illustrating that voters want to keep their authority to retain, or remove, sitting judges. However, it’s worth noting that from the perspective of the independence of the judiciary, rather than the perspective of voters’ protecting their power, this result is less positive. Considerable research has shown that retention elections for judges can bias decisions from the bench and undermine judicial independence.
4. Proposals to create new commissions involving citizens
In two states, voters were asked to decide whether to establish new commissions involving citizens in the democratic process. (See Table 4.) In Colorado, an initiative developed by the legislature called for the creation of a commission to oversee discipline of judges, which existing law gives to the state Supreme Court. The amendment proposed an Independent Judicial Discipline Adjudicative Board, consisting of four district court judges, four attorneys, and four citizens. The Board conducts disciplinary hearings and considers appeals relating to disciplinary actions for judges. The measure passed overwhelmingly with 73% support (19 percentage points above Harris’s vote share in the state).
The last measure discussed in this report, a defeat on this report’s voter-power list, is the best known and most significant. Ohioans voted on a citizen-initiated ballot measure to establish an independent redistricting commission. Had it passed, Ohio would have joined five other states in taking away the legislature’s authority to draw legislative and congressional districts (Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, and Utah).
Legislative control of redistricting (which occurs in no democracy other than the United States), contributes to negative outcomes including fewer competitive seats, over-representation of the political extremes, and lack of accountability to majority voter preferences—problems often grouped under the term partisan gerrymandering. Polls show widespread support among voters of both parties for ending partisan gerrymandering and giving control of redistricting to independent commissions.
In Ohio, however, the independent redistricting commission measure lost, 46%-54%. The loss can be attributed, at least in part, to efforts by senior Republicans, the party that has benefited from partisan gerrymandering in Ohio. Ohio’s Ballot Board, chaired by its highly partisan Secretary of State, drafted misleading ballot language voters saw when they voted, which described independent redistricting as “requiring gerrymandering.” The language was upheld by the Republican majority on the state Supreme Court. Polling in the state showed strong general support for redistricting reform, and Ohio voters backed are districting reform amendment to “end the partisan process for drawing congressional districts” with 75% of the vote in 2018. These factors support the argument that the IRC would have won were it not for the intentionally misleading ballot language.
Analyzing the Results in Aggregate
Taking the 12 ballot measures as a group, ten resulted in wins for keeping or expanding the power of citizens in the political system across seven states. Across the ten wins, the protect democracy position received 59% of the vote in total. On average, the winning side in these ten wins received 15 percentage points more than Vice President Harris. Both data points make clear that voters from both sides of the presidential election came together on these measures.
Six of the nine wins were “no” votes against enacting an anti-democratic change, as such these results probably benefited to some degree from voters’ inherent bias toward maintaining the status quo, which typically helps the "no" side of a referendum. But many of these no votes won by substantial margins, and three wins were “yes” votes also with large margins, including 73% to 27% for Colorado’s independent judicial discipline board, and 74% to 26% for Maine’s PAC contribution limit. Status quo bias may have helped but cannot account on its own for the overall pattern in these results.
Conclusion – Why This Matters
Power matters in democracy, just as it does in any other governing system. Democratically elected leaders need sufficient power to implement their proposed policies. At the same time, democracies rely on checks and balances, on countervailing sources of power to offset potential abuses of power, and ensure representation and accountability. The 2024 election has resulted in a President and a governing party that are remarkably powerful, with control of all the federal branches of government and trifecta control of 23 states. In this context, the health of the countervailing sources of power is critically important, particularly the willingness of citizens to stand for democracy and against attempts to subvert it.
One of the most important ways citizens stand for democracy and against subversion is through ballot measures, so it is important that five of the ten pro-voter wins this election protected the ballot measure process itself. It is also important that the cause of the most significant loss is an abuse of the ballot initiative process, via the deeply misleading ballot language imposed on Ohio’s Independent Redistricting Commission measure. Both facts point to the importance of improving the ballot initiative process to remove partisan interference. Election Reformers Network will be releasing new research and insights on this key topic soon.
Now more than ever, ballot initiatives are critical to the role of citizens as a countervailing source of power in democracy. The ballot initiative process needs protection, and it needs to be used to continue to advance needed structural reforms.
Tables
Table 1: 2024 ballot measures that would have made it harder for ballot measures to reach voters
Table 2: 2024 ballot measures related to campaign finance
Table 3: Ballot measures related to voter authority
Table 4: Ballot measures related to commissions