While the world focuses on who will be elected next President of the United States, millions of Americans are also deciding on hundreds of ballot issues that will affect their daily lives.
With 10 states considering measures related to abortion or reproductive rights in Tuesday’s elections, nearly a half-dozen states are considering issues such as marijuana legalization, sports betting, housing and the minimum wage.
Many ballot issues were brought forward through citizen petitions, although others were put before voters by legislators.
Here are some of the issues that Americans will decide in some states on Tuesday.
While it is legal in Canada, voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota decide whether they want to legalize recreational marijuana for adults.
Tuesday’s election marks the third vote on the issue in the Dakotas. In Nebraska, voters are considering measures that would legalize medical marijuana and regulate the industry.
About half of the states currently allow recreational marijuana, and about a dozen other states allow medical marijuana. Possession or sale of marijuana remains a crime under federal law, punishable by imprisonment and fines.
Missouri voters are deciding whether to become the latest to legalize sports betting.
Thirty-eight states plus Washington, D.C., already allow sports betting.
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It has expanded rapidly since the US Supreme Court paved the way for it in 2018.
Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, while also requiring paid sick leave, is on the ballot in Missouri and Alaska.
Meanwhile, in California, there is a measure that would raise the minimum wage for all employers to $18 an hour.
In Massachusetts, voters decide whether to gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped employees until it matches the rate for other employees.
By contrast, Arizona’s measure would allow tipped workers to earn 25 percent less than the minimum wage, as long as the tips push their total wages beyond the minimum wage.
Californians are deciding whether to repeal a 1995 law limiting local rent control ordinances.
If approved, it would open the way for local governments to expand restrictions on the rates property owners can charge.
In Arizona, a proposal is being presented to voters that links property taxes to responses to homelessness.
If approved, it would allow property owners to seek property tax refunds if they incurred expenses because the local government refused to enforce ordinances against illegal camping, loitering, panhandling, public alcohol and drug use, and other things.
Voters in West Virginia are deciding whether to amend the state constitution to ban medically assisted suicide.
The measure would conflict with 10 states and Washington, D.C., where physician-assisted suicide is permitted.
-With files from The Associated Press
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
