How ballot initiatives work
The answer
A ballot initiative lets ordinary citizens, not the legislature, write a law or constitutional amendment and put it directly to voters. Most people assume this exists everywhere. It doesn't. Only 26 states, plus DC, have any statewide initiative or referendum process at all.1 In the states that do, the real barrier usually isn't public support, it's the cost of collecting enough signatures to qualify.
How it actually works
There are several distinct mechanisms, and which one a state uses matters. A direct initiative goes straight to the ballot once organizers gather enough valid signatures, no legislature involved. An indirect initiative goes to the legislature first: lawmakers get a set window to adopt it as written, and if they don't, it proceeds to the ballot anyway. A popular referendum runs the opposite direction: instead of proposing something new, citizens petition to force an already-passed law onto the ballot so voters can uphold or repeal it. Legislative referral is different again, that's when lawmakers themselves refer a measure to voters, most often for constitutional amendments.1
Signature requirements are typically set as a percentage of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, and gathering them is expensive. In California's 2024 cycle, the average cost per required signature reached $14.87, up 115% from $6.93 in 2016, with the priciest measure, a rent-control initiative, costing $18.19 per signature. Across 53 qualifying 2024 California initiatives, campaigns spent more than $172 million total just on signature drives. That cost is a real barrier separate from public support: an idea can be popular and still never reach the ballot if no one can afford to collect the names.2
A concrete 2024 example: Arizona's Proposition 139, a citizen initiative establishing a state constitutional right to abortion up to fetal viability, passed with 62% of the vote. It was one of 11 abortion-related ballot measures nationwide that year, the most in a single year on record, illustrating both how the direct-initiative process works and how heavily it gets used on high-salience issues once a state allows it.3
Who holds the power
Whoever can afford professional signature-gathering firms has a structural advantage in getting a measure to the ballot at all, regardless of the underlying idea's popularity. Once on the ballot, the power reverts to voters directly, unlike ordinary legislation.
Where you come in
If you're in one of the 26 initiative states, find your state's specific signature threshold and deadline before assuming an idea can simply be put to a vote. See filing-deadlines-signatures-and-fees for how signature and fee rules work for candidates, a related but separate track. If you're not in an initiative state, this tool isn't available to you at all, your only paths run through the legislature.
The 26 states with some initiative or referendum process vary enormously in how easy the process actually is: some have low signature thresholds and allow constitutional amendments by initiative, others restrict initiatives to statutes only or set thresholds high enough that professional signature-gathering is effectively required.
Related
Glossary: petition-signature-requirement, ballot-access
See also: filing-deadlines-signatures-and-fees