Obstruction of citizen ballot initiatives
Imposing procedural burdens on citizen-initiated ballot measures that legislature-referred measures don't face, or manipulating a ballot measure's timing, format, or administration to suppress the vote it would otherwise receive. It matters because it lets officials block popular measures through process rather than at the ballot box.
2026 Events (3)
Reporting revealed Edgerton City Council had sued citizens to block certified ballot petition banning data centers
On August 14, 2026, KCTV5 reported that the City of Edgerton, Kansas had sued residents Carrie Schmidt and Kimberly Twente and the nonprofit Public Trust Collective in Johnson County District Court, seeking to void their certified ballot petition banning high-impact data centers and permanently block it from reaching a public vote. The Johnson County Election Office had verified the petition collected more than double the required signatures, and Kansas law required the city to either adopt the ordinance or put it to a vote; instead, the Edgerton City Council voted on July 23 to authorize the lawsuit. The exact court-filing date was not disclosed in public reporting; the city's public defense of the suit came from City Attorney Todd Luckman in an August 13 statement.
Yellowstone County, Montana retroactively moved ballot-initiative deadline a month earlier at data-center developer's urging, killing citizen petition
On August 4, 2026, Yellowstone County, Montana's attorney's office announced that the signature deadline for a citizen ballot initiative regulating data centers had actually passed a month earlier, reversing the August 12 deadline the county's own election department had given organizers in June. The county said it adopted the new July 13 deadline after data-center developer Quantica Infrastructure's attorney flagged a different statute to the county attorney on July 30.
Missouri Secretary of State Hoskins rejected sufficient-signature referendum on GOP congressional map as unconstitutional
On August 4, 2026, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a referendum petition from the PAC People Not Politicians seeking a public vote on the state's new GOP-drawn congressional map, ruling that congressional redistricting is not subject to Missouri's referendum process at all -- a novel legal theory -- despite the petition having gathered signatures exceeding the required threshold. Hoskins said the signature count did not matter because "they are unconstitutional," and simultaneously rejected a second, separate ballot petition on different grounds. People Not Politicians sued within hours, and Missouri courts must resolve the dispute by September 8, 2026, the deadline for finalizing the November ballot.
2025 Events (2)
Missouri legislature referred amendment imposing district veto only on citizen ballot initiatives; Kehoe scheduled low-turnout August vote
On September 12, 2025, Missouri's Republican-controlled General Assembly gave final passage to Amendment 4, a legislature-referred constitutional amendment requiring citizen-initiated amendments to win majorities in all eight of the state's congressional districts while exempting amendments the legislature itself refers to the ballot. Eight months later, on May 22, 2026, Gov. Mike Kehoe scheduled the resulting referendum for the historically low-turnout August primary rather than the November general election. The measure followed a string of citizen-led ballot initiatives Republicans had opposed, including Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, and abortion rights.
South Dakota Legislature referred Amendment L, raising constitutional-amendment threshold to 60%, a bar past citizen wins wouldn't have cleared
On March 10, 2025, the South Dakota State Senate voted 29-4 to give final passage to House Joint Resolution 5003, referring Constitutional Amendment L to the November 2026 ballot; the measure would raise the threshold to approve any constitutional amendment from a simple majority to 60%. All four constitutional amendments South Dakota voters have approved since 2020 -- including a 2022 Medicaid-expansion measure that passed with 56% support over opposition from the Republican-controlled Legislature, which holds 97 of 105 seats -- would have failed under the proposed threshold.