It may be the election of a lifetime, a unique chance to change the course of history, redraw the electoral map and reposition the US in the world.
But for Californian voters, it is all about the chicken. On the other side of the country in Massachusetts, voters are mulling over the merits of greyhounds, while in Alaska; they have wolves and bears on their minds.
This year, US voters will be faced not just with the stark choice between the presidential candidates, but also with a flurry of ballot propositions.
Also known as ballot initiatives, or measures, they are allowed in 36 of the 50 states. These ballots epitomize the business of direct democracy in the US, providing a way for individuals, interest groups and just about anybody who can raise enough signatures and enough money to place a proposal before voters. A 50 percent majority is required for a ballot proposal to pass and become law. But more than half fail to get enough votes.
“Ballot measures are intended to give the public a say in state government in a way that representative democracy might not always do,” said Kareem Crayton, an assistant professor of law and political science at the University of Southern California (USC).
This year there will be 153 state-wide ballot initiatives, addressing issues from taxation to transport, from gambling to energy. That figure is down from the 2004 presidential election, when voters faced 162 ballot propositions. As a recent report from USC’s Initiative and Referendum Institute declares: “This is looking to be a down year for direct democracy.”
That is not what California’s chickens — or to give them their legal definition, egg-laying poultry — might say, should they be able to talk. Up for voter consideration in the state is proposition No. 2. Known as the standards for confining farm animals initiative, it would prohibit the confinement of chickens, veal calves and pregnant pigs in a manner that does not allow the animal to lie down, stand up, turn around or spread their wings.
The measure, which according to the polls stands a good chance of passing into law, has caused a flap. It has also proved a boon for headline writers in search of bad puns.
Animal rights groups have lined up against the food industry to make their cases, buoyed by an estimated US$14 million raised by the two sides. And this being California, the measure has attracted high-profile supporters: Ellen DeGeneres touted the measure on her talk show, while Oprah Winfrey devoted an hour-long program to it.
Yet while the ballot initiative process has often been rightly criticized for introducing frivolity into elections, it also offers a way to raise issues of legitimate concern to parts of the electorate.
In South Dakota an initiative on the ballot this year would allow the state to fine those who engage in short selling.
“Short what?” asked the political class when the idea was first mooted last year. A year on, and the initiative has found its moment, as the practice of borrowing stock and selling it when the price is about to drop has been identified as an early villain in the financial meltdown.
Financial and taxation measures have been initiative staples over the past 110 years that the method has been in use. The most famous is California’s proposition 13 in 1978 which placed a cap on property taxes. This year, 24 of the 153 ballots concern raising, lowering or recalculating taxes.
Social issues are also a favorite: gay marriage is on the ballot in four states, abortion in three, while Washington state gets to vote on assisted suicide, and voters in Michigan can decide on the desirability of stem cell research in their state.
Thus in Colorado, indeed a proposition-happy state, voters will be asked to rule on a question that Barack Obama memorably declared was “above my pay grade”: at what point does human life begin? The initiative proposes to amend Colorado’s Constitution to state that a “person ... shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.”
In South Dakota, the abortion ban initiative aims to prohibit all abortions except for those carried out in cases of rape, incest or to protect a woman’s health.
“If this passes, doctors will not perform abortions because the wording is too vague,” said Kristina Wilfore, the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center in Washington.
“This is a red state, a state with the strictest anti-abortion laws already in place. This is about setting a test case for Roe v Wade. It will be a nail-biter,” she said.
But the political winds, not to mention the economy, have made the ballot proposition less fertile terrain for social conservatives. Many initiatives, including anti-abortion measures in Oregon, Georgia and Montana, failed to make the ballot this year because supporters could not drum up the required number of signatures.
“They have failed because they are out of synch and too extreme,” Wilfore said. “Is defining a fetus a person in Colorado the most important thing this year?”
One ballot initiative that has captured the imagination of social conservatives across the country is California’s Proposition 8, which “eliminates [the] right of same-sex couples to marry.”
Opponents and supporters of the measure have raised more than US$60 million between them to fight their fights, with the Catholic group Knights of Columbus lined up against the likes of Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt and poultry-loving DeGeneres.
The battle illustrates a weakness of the system: Proposition 8 has been bankrolled by donors from outside California. The main funder is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons, following an appeal from the church whose stronghold is in Utah, have donated about US$10 million to the cause.
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