On the Ballot Ballotpedia

On this episode: Earlier this week, voters in North Dakota approved a ballot measure that will establish age limits for the US Senate or US House of Representatives from the Roughrider State. The Congressional Age Limits Initiative, also known as North Dakota Initiated Measure 1, passed with 61% of the vote. It's officially the first American law of its kind to set a cap on how old you can be to serve as an elected official.



Now that the law has passed, the million dollar question is…what happens next?



Today's Guest is Dr. Mark Jendrysik–a political science professor from the University of North Dakota–who’s been closely following the initiative’s development and the domino effect it could potentially trigger.



Learn more about the measure here: https://ballotpedia.org/North_Dakota_Initiated_Measure_1,_Congressional_Age_Limits_Initiative_(June_2024) 



Candidate requirements across the country: https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislature_candidate_requirements_by_state 



Sign up for our the Daily Brew Newsletter: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia%27s_Daily_Brew



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.



*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.



**CORRECTION: The second time we refer to the results of the ballot measure, the host says it passed with 69% of the vote; this is wrong, as it passed with nearly 61% support.**

On this episode: Introducing our new tool! The first nationwide resource for state-level administrative state bill tracking, our brand new tracker provides a free, one-stop hub for individuals to follow administrative state legislative reforms in every state legislature, from introduction to enactment. 



Check out the Tracker here:  https://legislation.ballotpedia.org/admin-state/home 



Learn more about the administrative state: https://ballotpedia.org/Administrative_state & https://ballotpedia.org/Administrative_State_Index & https://ballotpedia.org/State_responses_to_judicial_deference 



Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_Email_Updates 



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.



*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole. 

On this episode: As of May 23, 110 statewide ballot measures have been certified for the ballot in 35 states for elections this year. In even-numbered years since 2010, the average was 161 statewide ballot measures.



With a little over a month until most state legislative sessions come to a close and citizen initiative signature deadlines approaching this summer, our ballot measures team takes a look at some of the trends that have emerged thus far this year and how state legislative sessions might shape out over these next few weeks.



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at mailto:ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @BP Newsletters.



Explore trends and learn more here: https://ballotpedia.org/2024_ballot_measures



Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_Email_Updates



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at mailto:ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @BP Newsletters.



*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.

On this episode: As state legislative sessions begin to wrap up around the country, Ballotpedia has tracked roughly 20 enacted bills related to Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing across 14 states thus far in 2024. What do they have in common? 



Leg. Supporting ESG: https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_approaches_supporting_ESG_investing 



Leg. Opposing ESG: https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_approaches_opposing_ESG_investing 



Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_Email_Updates 



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.

*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.

On this episode: On May 21st, voters in Eugene, Oregon, will decide whether or not to replace the existing electoral system with STAR voting for Mayor and City Council Elections. If approved, the city would become the first in the world to utilize this system for electing their political leaders. 



Through STAR voting, voters rate candidates for a given office on a scale of zero to five, with zero indicating no support and five indicating maximum support. The scores for all candidates are then tabulated and the top highest-scored candidates advance to an automatic runoff, at which time a voter's full vote is assigned to whichever of the two candidates he or she scored highest. The candidate whom a greater number of voters gave a higher score in the runoff is declared the winner. 



KLCC reporter Nathan Wilk, who's been covering the proposal, and Ballotpedia’s Joe Greaney, join the show to share how Eugene Measure 20-349 got on the ballot, local perception of the proposal, how STAR voting works, and what the arguments for and against the election system are. 



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.



Learn more about the Ballot Measure here: https://ballotpedia.org/Eugene,_Oregon,_Measure_20-349,_STAR_Voting_for_Mayor_and_City_Council_Elections_Initiative_(May_2024) 



Read Wilk’s reporting: https://www.klcc.org/politics-government/2024-04-23/eugene-could-adopt-star-voting-for-city-elections-how-would-this-work : 



Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_Email_Updates 



*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole. 

On this episode: An interview with Sophia Voight, a political reporter for The Appleton Post-Crescent, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK in Wisconsin. We came across Sophia’s reporting about a month ago in a story she wrote just ahead of Wisconsin’s state-wide local elections on April 2nd, in which she noticed and documented something that we’ve been following closely here at Ballotpedia: Local elections, especially in rural areas, are increasingly going uncontested. 



Through April of this year, Ballotpedia covered 11,945 elections in 40 states. Of that total, 8,802 (74%) were uncontested–16% more than the annual average between 2018 and 2023 (58%). 



Voight joins Ballotpedia’s Doug Kronaizl to share what she’s learned in her reporting about why folks aren’t running for office, what the implications for local governance might be, and what might reverse this trend. 



Learn more about the surge of uncontested elections this year: https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_uncontested_elections,_2024 



Read Voight’s reporting: https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/03/28/rural-wisconsin-communities-struggle-to-attract-candidates-for-elections/73032197007/ 



Sign up for our Newsletters: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia_Email_Updates 



Stream "On the Ballot" on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have questions, comments, or love for BP, feel free to reach out at ontheballot@ballotpedia.org or on X (formerly Twitter) @Ballotpedia.



*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.