By Salma El-Sakka
Voters across more than three dozen states decided nearly 150 ballot measures on Tuesday, largely affirming abortion rights while also endorsing voter identification and citizenship requirements for state elections. The results reflected a mix of progressive and conservative priorities shaping state policy directly.
Abortion Rights
In Nevada and Virginia, where abortion is legal through fetal viability, voters overwhelmingly passed measures to enshrine those rights in their state constitutions, each by margins of at least 24 percentage points. Nevada's vote was the second required for a citizen-initiated amendment. In Missouri, voters rejected a Republican-backed proposal to remove abortion-rights language added to the constitution in 2024. Conversely, in Idaho, where abortion is nearly banned, voters defeated a measure that would have created a statutory right to abortion through fetal viability.
Wealth Taxes
Washington state voters rejected a measure to repeal a 9.9% tax on annual income over $1 million enacted earlier this year. In California, a proposed billionaire tax known as Proposition 40 trailed by 11 points with 60% of the expected vote counted as of Wednesday.
Voter ID and Citizenship Requirements
Voters in West Virginia, South Dakota, Kansas, Alaska, and Arkansas approved constitutional amendments affirming that only U.S. citizens may vote in state elections, aiming to prevent local jurisdictions from allowing noncitizen voting. Ohio, North Carolina, and Nevada passed measures requiring photo identification for in-person voting. Virginia voters approved a Democratic-backed measure restoring voting rights to felons after their release from prison. Massachusetts rejected a proposal to replace party primaries with a top-two all-party primary system. The citizenship measures came amid a broader Trump administration crackdown on noncitizen voting, which remains extremely rare.
Redistricting
In Missouri, voters blocked a Republican-drawn congressional map that sought to divide one of the state's two Democratic-held districts. Maryland voters approved a constitutional amendment clearing the way for Democrats to redraw the state's congressional map, which currently has only one Republican-held district.
Transgender Rights
Several measures targeting transgender individuals appeared on ballots in Arizona, Colorado, and Washington. As of Wednesday, Arizona voters had approved a Republican-backed measure requiring schools to designate sports and intramural teams as male, female, or coed based on athletes' sex assigned at birth. Other measures remained too early to call.
