State Referendum Voting, Ballot Roll-off, and the Effect of New Electoral Technology

POLICY MAKING in the American states is increasingly the domain of the average citizen, thanks to the devices of direct democracy. In 26 states, representative democracy as practiced by elected officials is supplemented with the more citizendriven processes of initiative and referendum.1 Recent elections have seen the citizenry take the legislative process into their own hands, weighing in on a wide range of social and political issues, including affirmative action, campaign finance, medicinal use of marijuana, term limits, casino gambling, tax structures, minimum wages, and tort reform. Its proponents hail direct democracy as a means to more accessible, responsive, and equitable state government. Taking a different view, of course, are critics fearful of extreme, antidemocratic sentiments of tyrannical majorities and of potential abuse of the process by well-funded special interests. While these dangers may be overstated, a different sort of criticism is harder to dismiss: given that the intent of direct democracy is to enhance the voice of the people in the policy process, the low level of voter participation in state referendum and initiative contests— and the fact that those who do participate tend to be socioeconomically privileged— raises important concerns about whether the State Referendum Voting, Ballot Roll-off, and the Effect of New Electoral Technology