Election Day is 11 months away, and multiple states have already placed consequential referenda on the ballot that could bring significant changes to state laws and constitutions.

Some have already been approved for voters’ consideration, while others are awaiting enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. These referenda are expected to address cannabis, abortion, and transgender matters, among other issues.

Below are some of the referenda introduced in the states this year.

Abortion

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade, which held that abortion was a constitutional right, the issue continues to dominate state politics as interest groups compete to change laws.

In several states, efforts are underway to schedule referenda on abortion, mostly involving pro-abortion organizations seeking to remove limits on the procedure or enshrine abortion into the state constitution.

Both Nevada and Missouri are considering amendments that would alter how their state constitutions limit access.

In Nevada, voters are seeking to amend the state constitution to guarantee abortion access until fetal viability, or when a fetus can survive outside the womb.

Fetal viability, which usually begins after 23 weeks of pregnancy, was a legal benchmark the Supreme Court established in 1992 with Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In that case, the Court held that states could regulate pre-viability abortion, but could not impose an “undue burden” on accessing it, which meant that elective abortions were permitted.

The court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruled Casey and discarded its viability standard. The ruling in Dobbs gave states more freedom in deciding how to restrict or allow abortion.

Two years after that decision, in 2024, voters in Nevada overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution that guaranteed abortion until fetal viability, with 60 percent support. It has not been enacted yet, because the state constitution requires that the same amendment be passed in two successive elections before taking effect. This referendum will be the second vote in that series and, if passed, will ensure the amendment becomes law.

In Missouri, by contrast, a referendum has been proposed by the state legislature to repeal the state constitution’s protection of abortion access until fetal viability. That provision was added by referendum in 2024, although it was enacted with a slim margin of 51.6 percent support in the Republican-led state.

The initiative would require parental consent for minors seeking abortions as well as limit abortion access to “cases of medical emergency, fetal anomaly, rape, or incest,” according to the legislature’s Joint Resolution proposing the vote. Even in cases of rape or incest, abortion would only be permissible for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion would also be banned in cases where the fetus is known to have a disability that is not a fetal anomaly, and the abortion is motivated by the child’s disability. The proposal defines “fetal anomaly” as an abnormality in the child’s gestation that would make life outside the womb impossible, which means that non-terminal disabilities are excluded.

“This deceptive amendment is a Trojan horse to reinstate Missouri’s total abortion ban and all the medically unnecessary restrictions that made access to abortion unattainable prior to the passage of the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative last November,” the American Civil Liberties Union said of the joint resolution.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway, a Republican, supports the measure. “[I]n 2026 voters can decide if they want commonsense health and safety regulations for abortion and if they want to prohibit dangerous gender-transition procedures,” she wrote on social media.

In other states such as Virginia and Idaho, groups are still gathering signatures to put pro-abortion constitutional amendments on the ballot for November.

In Oregon, a Democratic-led state where abortion is mostly accessible, an initiative known as the “Equal Rights for All Measure” is scheduled to appear on state ballots in November.

It would amend the state’s constitution to make abortion a protected class of activity under anti-discrimination law, meaning that women would be able to sue employers, schools, and other public facilities if they face discrimination for undergoing the procedure.

Transgender Issues

Three states have transgender-related ballot initiatives underway, with measures targeting drugs such as puberty blockers and rules governing women’s athletic competitions.

Missouri’s referendum includes a potential constitutional provision preventing minors from being given surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers that are prescribed as “gender-affirming care.”

The referendum follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which held that a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors was constitutionally permissible.

In Colorado, two separate referenda have been proposed that would change state law to limit sports team membership and ban “gender-affirming care,” with the latter provision also banning the use of state funds, Medicaid insurance, and other federal funds for that purpose.

Parental rights advocates in Maine are gathering signatures in support of a referendum that would ban male students from participating in girls’ competitive sports teams.

Conservative groups, as well as some women’s rights organizations, have opposed the presence of men who identify as women in competitions and associated spaces, such as bathrooms and locker rooms.

The proposal in Maine would limit sports team membership in public schools based on sex, with female-only teams and male-only teams. Female students would be able to join a male sports team only if no female team is offered in that activity. Even after joining, however, locker room, bathroom, and private space access would still be sex-segregated.

Similar measures have encountered legal challenges. On Jan. 13, the Supreme Court reviewed Idaho’s and West Virginia’s laws banning students from playing on sports teams of the opposite sex.

Cannabis

Two states are preparing to add cannabis-related questions to their ballots in November.

At the federal level, legalization has gained momentum with President Donald Trump’s executive order to reclassify cannabis under Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, down from Schedule I. The federal policy shift allows cannabis companies to operate more freely, and brings regulation of the substance closer to many state laws.

In Nebraska, where medical uses of cannabis are legal, organizers are gathering signatures for a ballot question on legalizing recreational use for people over the age of 21.

Supporters argue that Nebraska is losing tax revenue as residents currently travel to neighboring states to buy it legally.

“Nebraskans just cross state lines to get their medicine in Missouri and Colorado. Those states get all that tax revenue, and we get nothing,” wrote Dan Osborne, an independent U.S. Senate candidate, on social media.

In Idaho, there are competing initiatives to legalize cannabis and to thwart that effort as well. Voters are expected to weigh in on a procedural referendum that will determine who decides whether to legalize cannabis in the state.

If the referendum passes, voters will relinquish that right to the state legislature; if it fails, voters will retain the ability to legalize the use of cannabis and other drugs through a future referendum.

Two other initiatives in the state are still accumulating signatures to be placed on the ballot, and seek to decriminalize cannabis and legalize its medicinal use.

In several states, legislatures are proposing measures that would raise the vote percentage required to pass referenda. For example, North Dakota and South Dakota voters will decide whether to increase the threshold to pass referenda to 60 percent support, up from 50 percent plus one.

Another proposal from Utah could require 60 percent of the vote for certain tax-related changes.

Meanwhile, Californians are expected to consider whether raising the vote threshold itself should require a higher vote threshold.