Welcome to the Tuesday, Dec. 22, Brew.

Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

1. More than $1 billion spent on statewide ballot measure campaigns this year
2. 30% of offices Ballotpedia covered on Nov.3 were uncontested
3. Keep voter education alive

More than $1 billion spent on statewide ballot measure campaigns this year

Our ballot measures team released its year-end report on Dec. 15 that breaks down all of this year’s statewide measures. During this year, voters decided 129 statewide measures in 34 states. Voters approved 93 of those—72%—and defeated 36. Committees registered to support or oppose the 129 statewide measures on the ballot this year raised a combined $1.2 billion and spent $1.02 billion. These figures include both cash contributions and expenditures as well as in-kind donations.

Here are five highlights from the report.

• The eight most prevalent topics, and the number of statewide measures addressing each, were the following:
  • Taxes (26) — including measures ranging from new tax proposals, income tax rates, tobacco taxes, business-related taxes, sales tax rates, fees and surcharges, and tax-increment financing (TIF)
  • Election policy and redistricting (18) — including measures on campaign finance, election dates, election systems, redistricting, suffrage, term limits, and term lengths
  • Gambling (7)
  • Marijuana (7)
  • Bond issues (7)
  • Law enforcement and trials (7)
  • Healthcare and Medicaid expansion (7)
  • Budgets and spending (6)

• The number of statewide measures was below the recent high of 272 in 1998 and the average of 172 in even-numbered years from 2010 through 2018. 

• Proponents filed paperwork for 881 citizen-initiated measures, with 43 of them (4.9%) successfully gathering enough signatures to make the ballot. In 2018, proponents filed 947 citizen-initiated measures, and 68 of them (7.2%) qualified for the ballot. 
• Ballotpedia tracked 27 ballot initiative campaigns that began gathering signatures but subsequently stopped because of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Although citizen-initiated measures represented 33% of total statewide measures, the campaigns supporting and opposing them accounted for about 78% of contributions. 

The full report includes:

• statistical summaries, 
• breakdowns of notable ballot measure topics,
• an analysis of ballot measure readability,
• campaign finance summaries,
• tracking of signature collection costs,
• information on the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on 2020 ballot measures, and 
• so much more!

I encourage you to read the entire report since it includes so much great information.

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30% of offices Ballotpedia covered on Nov. 3 were uncontested 

Of the 9,671 offices Ballotpedia tracked that were on the ballot on Nov. 3, 2,900 of them—30%— were uncontested. We consider a race as uncontested if the number of candidates who filed for election was less than or equal to the number of seats up for election. Ballotpedia covers all federal and state races and local elections in America’s 100 largest cities by population.

Here are five more noteworthy facts about Nov. 3’s uncontested elections:

• Massachusetts (73%) and Alabama (72%) had the highest percentage of uncontested offices. 

• In Massachusetts, all eight districts of the governor's council and 150 of 200 state legislative positions on the ballot were uncontested.
• Alabama had the highest percentage of uncontested U.S. House and Senate races—three out of eight.
• All state judicial races in North Dakota and Alabama were uncontested.
• There were no uncontested general elections in Hawaii and Oklahoma because general election races in those states are canceled if only one candidate advances from the primary.

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Keep voter education alive

This has been a year for political education. From learning about the rules of election administration, to how recounts vary by state, to seeing the ways that COVID influenced political engagement, Ballotpedia strives to help our readers understand it all. 

We need your help to keep voter education alive! Ballotpedia is a nonprofit organization that depends on the support of our readers. Please take a moment today to make a tax-deductible donation to keep valuable content like this newsletter, and all the work we produce, coming.

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