Ballot Initiatives

As anyone who’s worked on a ballot measure campaign will tell you, ballot measures tend to fly under voters’ radar. You typically need a strong ground game and a dedicated group of local volunteers to be successful. Most ballot measure campaigns also need an element of voter education and persuasion added to their programs. Without it, many voters won’t understand what the measure does and why it’s important. Ballot measures are often the very last thing on the ballot, so sometimes you simply need to remind voters to fill out the entire ballot or to flip the ballot over.

We’ve discussed in past blogs that a large part of executing a #winning political campaign is doing your background research, and ballot measure polling is the best way to find out if you can win and how you can win.

Sometimes the most difficult part of a ballot measure campaign is qualifying a ballot measure for the the ballot. Advocacy and political organizations alike have long used the ballot measure (or referendum, question, initiative, etc., depending on where you’re from) as a tool to advance their mission. It’s a way to get the public involved with your issue, and to show widespread support if successful.