Voters around the US cast ballots for a diverse range of initiatives that seek to reform laws on marijuana, the death penalty, climate change and more. Below are results in the most important contests.
Marijuana
Approved: California voters approved recreational marijuana, a huge victory in the fight for cannabis legalization, paving the way for the largest commercial pot market in the US.
Approved: Massachusetts also voted for recreational pot, extending legal weed from coast to coast.
Approved: Nevada became the third state to approve a recreational cannabis law, making the west an even stronger region for marijuana sales.
Approved: Earlier in the night, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana, the first victory in a string of high-profile cannabis measures on Tuesday’s state ballots.
Approved: North Dakota was the second state to approve medical weed, with the approval of Measure 5, which approves the use of marijuana to treat a number of diseases, including cancer, Aids, epilepsy and hepatitis C.
Approved: Arkansas also passed a medical cannabis measure that would allow patients with specific conditions to buy medicine from dispensaries licensed by the government.
Rejected: Arizona was the first state to vote against its marijuana measure, with the news early on Wednesday morning that voters have rejected Proposition 205. The measure would have legalized recreational pot.
Approved: Montana residents voted to expand the state’s medical marijuana system with the passage of Initiative 182, which removes limits on the number of patients providers can serve. Proponents of the measure argued that the existing restrictions blocked patients from accessing care.
Advocates and opponents agree that California’s Proposition 64 is the most important cannabis measure America has seen and could be an international game-changer for marijuana policy in the US.
California, which recently overtook the UK to have the fifth largest economy in the world, is expected to have a recreational marijuana market greater than Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska combined, said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
“When I talk to everybody from allies to government officials in Mexico and I ask them what’s it going to take to transform the debate,” he said, “the response to me is when California legalizes marijuana.”
Too close to call: As of Wednesday afternoon, a recreational measure in Maine was still too close to call.
Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, paving the way for Oregon, and Alaska to follow suit.
As medical and retail cannabis operations have spread across the US, legal marijuana has become the fastest-growing industry in the US, with some analysts projecting sales to reach $22bn by 2020.
Although dozens of states have also taken steps to authorize medical marijuana or decriminalize pot, cannabis remains an illegal drug at the federal level.
Opponents of legalization, who have spent millions campaigning against this year’s measures, have argued that pot shops pose public safety risks and lead to an increase in adolescent drug abuse.
But supporters of the measures have argued that ending marijuana prohibition is critical for eliminating the war on drugs that has fueled mass incarceration and disproportionately affected people of color.
Some studies have also cast doubts on fears that legalization leads to higher rates of teen abuse, and backers of legalization further point to the big tax revenues the commercial industries have raised, exceeding initial projections.
Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and an expert in drug policy, predicted that as more states legalize pot, there will be a continual decline in marijuana arrests.
“You’ll see plunging prices all over,” he added, “and you’re going to have a lot more consumption.”
Tuesday’s victories could encourage other states and Congress to pursue similar reforms, said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.
“It emboldens legislators to take on the issue and treat it more seriously.”
Death penalty
Rejected: California rejected a high-profile measure to repeal the death penalty, which would have ended capital punishment and taken 741 inmates off of death row, instead sentencing them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Too close to call: As of Wednesday afternoon, the state’s competing death penalty measure – Proposition 66, designed to speed up executions – was still too close to call. If it passes, the measure would be a major loss for death penalty opponents across the nation, who have fought for years to make California a leader in repealing capital punishment.
Approved: Oklahoma passed a measure to reaffirm the state’s commitment to the death penalty after the state attorney general suspended executions last year. Question 776, known as the Allow Any Execution Method, protects the death penalty in the constitution, blocking it from being declared cruel or unusual punishment.
Approved: Nebraska voters passed an unusual ballot measure to reinstate the death penalty after state lawmakers repealed it in 2015. The vote is a big loss for opponents of capital punishment given that Nebraska was the first conservative state to repeal the death penalty in more than 40 years.
Minimum wage
Approved: Arizona became the first state to raise the minimum wage on Tuesday night, with a Proposition 206 victory, raising the rate to $12 an hour by 2020. The measure also requires employers to provide paid sick time to workers.
Approved: Washington state’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $13.50 an hour was also successful on Tuesday.
Approved: Colorado voters also approved a measure to increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, which some studies suggest will boost incomes for 20% of households in the state.
Approved: Maine’s minimum wage increase proposal was another victory on Tuesday, solidifying a successful night for the Fight for $15 labor movement that has fought to make salary improvements for low-wage workers a national issue. Maine’s Question 4 also calls for $12 by 2020.
Rejected: South Dakota was an outlier this year with a referendum on whether to lower the minimum wage for workers younger than 18. But residents voted against the state’s Referred Law 20, which would have exempted youth from South Dakota’s new minimum wage, increased to $8.50 in 2014.
Climate change
Rejected: Washington residents voted against a measure called Initiative 732, which called for the first carbon tax in the US. It would have cost emitters $25 for each ton of carbon dioxide from 2018. It would have increased gradually over the course of 40 years to $100 a ton.
Rejected: Florida voters said no to Amendment 1, a measure that would have restricted the ability of homeowners to sell electricity they create through rooftop solar panels to the grid. Environmental groups said the measure was “fundamentally dishonest” because it was backed by the state’s large utilities and could have hurt the regional solar industry.
Healthcare
Rejected: Colorado has voted against the creation of a single-payer healthcare system that would have made the state the first in the country to have universal, government-run healthcare. Amendment 69, also known as ColoradoCare, would have created a $36bn health system designed to ensure that every resident of the state is served. The program, which called for a new 10% payroll tax, would have replaced the private health insurance system. The defeat is a big win for major medical providers such as Anthem and Kaiser, which helped finance the opposition campaign.
Rejected: A California health proposal that received national attention thanks to an endorsement from US senator Bernie Sanders ultimately failed to earn enough votes. The state rejected Proposition 61, which would have restricted California from spending more on prescription drugs than the prices paid by the US Department of Veteran Affairs.
Opponents had spent $109m against the proposition, which the pharmaceutical industry strongly opposed. Sanders had said he hopes the measure would spark a national movement to lower drug prices.
Guns
Approved: Washington state passed the first gun control ballot measure of the night, with the approval of Initiative 1491, which allows courts to issue protection orders to remove an individual’s access to firearms, such as domestic abusers.
Approved: California voters followed suit, passing a proposal that requires people buying ammunition to undergo background checks and outlaws possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Approved: Nevada voters narrowly passed a measure to expand background checks, requiring that firearm transfers go through a licensed dealer. The proposal exempts transfers between immediate family members.
Rejected: Gun control advocates were dealt a major blow in Maine with the narrow defeat of Question 3, a measure that called for universal background checks. The proposal was supported by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and would have been a big victory for gun safety groups in a state that has traditionally supported gun rights.
Homelessness
Approved: A group of San Francisco’s tech billionaires and millionaires successfully passed a measure to ban tents that homeless people use to sleep on the street. Opponents have slammed Proposition Q – funded by venture capitalist Michael Moritz, angel investor Ron Conway and hedge fund manager William Oberndorf – as a cruel proposal that further criminalizes homeless people without providing new funding for housing or services. Critics have also pointed out that local shelters have long waitlists for beds and that city workers already conduct regular sweeps of homeless encampments.
Approved: In Los Angeles, another city that has struggled with a homeless epidemic, voters approved a measure that creates a $1.2bn investment over 10 years to support housing and programs through the issuance of bonds.
Other initiatives
Rejected: California voted against Proposition 60, a controversial proposal that would have required pornography performers to wear condoms during film shoots. Performers opposed the measure, arguing that industry testing protocols are effective and that the proposal would have opened the door for private citizens to file lawsuits against producers and actors.
Approved: Indiana and Kansas both passed so-called “right to hunt” measures on Tuesday by wide margins.
Those victories are part of an ongoing movement to enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish. Since 1996, 18 states have amended their constitutions to establish hunting and fishing as inalienable rights.
The measures are politically popular, even though critics have argued that there are no legitimate threats to hunting or fishing.
