A comprehensive look at 113 years of ballot measures in Arizona

By

Lara Bonatesta

Welcome to the Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, Brew. 

By: Lara Bonatesta

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

  1. A comprehensive look at 113 years of ballot measures in Arizona 
  2. Redo election scheduled for California’s Coachella Valley Unified School District
  3. Did you know that 80 special congressional elections were called between 2013 and 2024?

A comprehensive look at 113 years of ballot measures in Arizona 

Ballotpedia’s Historical Ballot Measure Factbook will document nearly 200 years of direct democracy in the United States. This ongoing research effort will provide an unparalleled resource for researchers, reporters, and the public on how ballot measures have evolved, the issues they have covered, and their role in our civic life.

We introduced this project last summer when we featured Texas’ historical ballot measures and gave Brew readers a sneak peek at what to expect as we expand our Fact Book to all 50 states. Since then, we’ve published summary content about California, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. Today, let’s look at historical ballot measures in Arizona.

Our comprehensive inventory of Arizona’s ballot measures spans from 1911 – the year voters in the Arizona territory adopted the initiative and referendum process – to 2024. 

In that time, Arizonans decided on 476 ballot measures, approving 251 and defeating 225, with a 53.7% approval rate. The average approval rate of the five states we’ve published summary content so far is 61.5%.

The chart below shows the total number of measures voters decided on each decade. Between the 1910s and 2020s, voters decided on an average of more than 41 measures each decade.

There are six different types of ballot measures in Arizona. Here’s a breakdown of historical ballot measures by type.

Between 1911 and 2024, the Arizona Legislature referred 257 measures to the ballot, while there were 219 citizen initiatives. Legislatively-referred measures were approved 60% of the time, compared to 45% for citizen initiatives.

Ballot measure topics in Arizona

Arizona ballot measures have addressed 80 unique topics, with some addressing multiple topics in one measure. 

Here is a selection of important and interesting measures from the Arizona Factbook:

  • In 1911—the same year voters approved the initiative and referendum process—voters in the Arizona territory approved a state constitution. Then-President William H. Taft vetoed the statehood legislation because he opposed a provision allowing the recall of judges. Voters removed the provision, approving a revised constitution in December 1911. Voters then reinstated the provision after becoming a state in 1912.
  • In 1912, voters approved the state’s first citizen-initiated constitutional amendment 68.4%-31.6%, giving women the right to vote and hold public office in Arizona. Between 1867 and August 18, 1920, 54 ballot measures to grant women’s suffrage were on the ballot in 30 states. Arizona was one of 15 states to approve such a measure before the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote nationally.
  • Compared to other states, Arizona has had the most ballot measures related to immigration. In 1914, voters approved an initiative requiring employers to have at least 80% of their employees be U.S. citizens. In 2008, voters rejected Proposition 202, which would have suspended or revoked business licenses for those who intentionally employ people who entered the U.S. without legal permission. Most recently, in 2024, voters approved Proposition 314, which made it a state crime for noncitizens to enter the state directly from a foreign country at any location other than official ports of entry, among other provisions.
  • Arizonans have voted on five ballot measures related to capital punishment. In 1914, voters rejected an initiative to ban the death penalty and, in 1916, reversed course, approving an initiative prohibiting it. In 1918, voters approved a measure reinstating capital punishment. In 1933 and 1992, voters approved measures regarding execution methods, designating lethal gas as the execution method in 1933 and switching to lethal injection in 1992.
  • In 1950, voters rejected Measure Nos. 318-319, which would have prohibited segregation in public schools. In 1953, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Fred C. Struckmeyer ruled that Arizona’s law permitting school segregation was unconstitutional. A year later, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate, but equal” facilities were unconstitutional and began the federally mandated desegregation of schools nationally.
  • In 1992, voters approved Proposition 108, which required a two-thirds vote of each legislative chamber to pass legislation that increases state revenue through taxes or changes how tax revenues are distributed among local governments. The vote was 71.9%-28.1%.
  • In 2024, voters approved a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment, Proposition 139, providing for a state constitutional right to abortion. The vote was 61.6%-38.4%.

Keep reading

Redo election scheduled for California’s Coachella Valley Unified School District

Voters in California’s Coachella Valley Unified School District – which spans both Riverside and Imperial counties–will cast ballots in a court-ordered redo election for three of the district’s seven school board seats on March 5. 

The seats were originally up for election on Nov. 5, 2024, but due to a clerical error, the races were omitted from roughly 2,400 ballots in Imperial County. 

As a result, the school district and Imperial County asked Riverside County Superior Court judge Chad Firetag for a temporary restraining order preventing Riverside County from reporting the election results. 

On Nov. 6, the Riverside County Registrar of Voters posted to Facebook, saying that Firetag had granted the request and ordered a partial redo election in which only Imperial County residents will participate. After the redo election, election officials will add the results to those from Riverside County’s November election to produce the final vote count.

Six candidates are running in the three school board races:

Coachella Valley Unified School District is the 77th largest district in California, with more than 17,000 students. 

In addition to the redo in California, Ballotpedia is also covering a redo election for a school board seat in Ben Hill County, Georgia. Incumbent Kenneth Scott Palmer and Austin Wayne Futch are running in the special general election to represent District 6 on the Ben Hill County School Board on March 18. This is the second court-ordered redo election for this position. Click on either candidate’s name to learn more.

Background about redo elections

Usually, states or courts only call for such a redo election if the number of ballots affected is large enough to change the outcome. The reasons for calling a redo election vary but may include electoral fraud, non-fraudulent misconduct, broken voting machines, ballot errors, or natural disasters.  

While most states have provisions describing how to handle contested elections, they normally do not specify what election officials should do if fraud or mistakes occur. This often leaves states or courts to decide whether to call a redo election based upon legal precedents, interpretation of state laws, and a close examination of the contested elections in question.

Most redo elections take place at the municipal or county level. The most recent redo election for a congressional office took place in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District in 2019. 

The amount of time between an initial election and a redo election depends on how quickly the legal cases around a contested election proceed. In the North Carolina example above, 308 days passed between the initial election and the redo. In 2020, a redo election for sheriff in Iron County, Missouri, took place 49 days after the initial election.

For a list of notable redo elections, click here. Check out our recent episode of On The Ballot featuring host Geoff Pallay and Ballotpedia’s Doug Kronaizl to learn more about redo elections, how they work, and their history. 

Keep reading 

Did you know that 80 special congressional elections were called between 2013 and 2024? During that time, special elections were called for 29 seats vacated by Democrats and 51 vacated by Republicans.

Two special elections have so far been called to fill vacant seats in the 119th Congress, and both are scheduled for April 1:

Click here to learn more about upcoming special elections and to see Ballotpedia’s historical special elections data.