Ballot initiatives and referendums in Idaho

Article III, Section 1 of the Idaho Constitution vests lawmaking in the legislature and then, in the same section, takes some of it back for the voters. The people reserve the power to propose laws and enact them "independent of the legislature," which is the initiative, and the power to approve or reject any act the legislature passes, which is the referendum. Both powers come with conditions the legislature sets by statute. The Secretary of State notes that voters wrote the powers into the constitution in 1912, and the legislature did not pass the laws to use them until 1933. The fight over those conditions has never really stopped.

Three ways a measure reaches the ballot

	Initiative	Referendum	Constitutional amendment
Who starts it	Citizens, by petition	Citizens, by petition against a new law	The legislature only (Article XX, Section 1)
Threshold to get on ballot	6% statewide and 6% in 18 districts	Same signature standard	Two-thirds of all members of each house
Main deadline	Signatures to county clerks by May 1 of election year	Filed with Secretary of State within 60 days after sine die	Joint Rule 20: introduced by the 36th legislative day
To pass	Majority of votes on the measure	Majority decides whether the law stands	Majority of electors voting on it
Can the legislature change it later?	Yes, an initiated statute is an ordinary statute	Yes, by a new law	Only by another amendment

Idaho has no citizen route to amend the constitution. That is why the 2026 ballot includes legislative amendments (HJR 4 and HJR 6) alongside a citizen initiative.

The initiative, step by step

The Secretary of State's filing guide, citing Title 34, Chapter 18, lays out the order.

1. File the proposal. Submit the text to the Secretary of State with signatures of 20 qualified electors. For a statewide initiative, also propose a funding source for the cost of carrying it out. The funding source must travel with the petition but is not part of the law (34-1804).
2. Certificate of review. The attorney general has 20 working days to review the measure and recommend changes. The recommendations are advisory; sponsors may accept or reject them (34-1809(1)).
3. Final filing and ballot titles. Within 15 working days after the certificate, sponsors who want to proceed file the final measure. The attorney general writes short and long ballot titles within 10 working days. Anyone dissatisfied with the titles may appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court within 20 days after they are filed.
4. Fiscal impact statement. The Division of Financial Management prepares one. Circulators must offer the initiative, the fiscal impact summary and the funding source information to each signer.
5. Circulate. Signature gathering runs 18 months from receipt of the ballot title and fiscal impact statement, or until April 30 of the election year, whichever comes first (34-1802(1)). Circulators must be Idaho residents at least 18 years old. Each sheet holds signers from one county only. Paid circulators must wear a badge saying so.
6. County verification. Petitions go to county clerks by close of business May 1 of the election year (or the 18-month mark, if earlier). Clerks verify within 60 days, and no later than June 30 (34-1802(2) and (3)). Signers can strike their own names before the petition is filed with the clerk, or ask in writing to be removed before verification.
7. File with the Secretary of State. At least four months before the election (34-1802(4)).

The signature rule, and why the code is wrong about it

Open Idaho Code 34-1805 online and it says signatures must equal 6 percent of qualified electors "in each of the thirty-five (35) legislative districts." That text came from Senate Bill 1110 in 2021. It is not the rule in force.

Reclaim Idaho sued, and in August 2021 the Idaho Supreme Court held in Reclaim Idaho/Gilmore v. Denney that the all-35-districts requirement violated Article III, Section 1 and barred it from taking effect. The earlier version of 34-1805 governs: signatures equal to 6 percent of qualified electors at the last general election statewide, and 6 percent in each of at least 18 legislative districts. The Secretary of State's VoteIdaho site states that standard. In the same case the court blocked a 2020 change that would have delayed every statewide initiative's effective date to July 1 of the following year. That provision, 34-1813(2), also still appears online.

The arguments on the district rule deserve a fair hearing. Supporters of stricter geographic rules, including the legislators who passed SB 1110, argue that rural districts should not be outvoted by signature drives that concentrate in a few cities. Opponents, including the sponsors who sued, argue that letting any single district block a statewide measure gives a small minority a veto over a power the constitution reserves to the people. The court sided with the opponents on the 35-district version. The 18-district rule remains.

Referendums

A referendum asks voters whether a law the legislature passed should stand. The petition needs the same signature standard, and it must be filed with the Secretary of State within 60 days after final adjournment of the session that passed the bill (34-1803). The vote happens at the next general election. Section 34-1803 says a referred measure takes effect "when it is approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon, and not otherwise."

Idaho's most dramatic use came in 2012, when voters rejected three education laws passed in 2011. The Secretary of State's history records all three as "Law Rejected," with 57.1, 58.0 and 66.7 percent voting no. In 2002, a referendum went the other way. Voters had adopted term limits by initiative in 1994 with 59.4 percent. The legislature later repealed them, a referendum challenged the repeal, and the 2002 result was 203,005 to 201,116, a margin of 1,889 votes. Term limits stayed repealed. That episode also shows the rule in the table above: a voter-approved statute can be repealed by the legislature.

Recent and current measures

• 2018: An initiative to expand Medicaid eligibility passed, 365,107 to 237,567 (60.6 percent).
• 2022: The Quality Education Act qualified as Proposition 1 and was then withdrawn.
• 2024: Proposition 1, a top-four primary and ranked-choice voting initiative, qualified and did not pass. A medical marijuana initiative did not qualify.
• 2026: As of October 2026, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act has qualified for the November 3 ballot. The Idaho Medical Cannabis Act and the Decriminalize Cannabis Now initiative did not qualify, according to the Secretary of State, which said they fell short both in total signatures and in required districts. The legislature also placed two constitutional amendments on the ballot: HJR 4, which would give the legislature exclusive authority to legalize marijuana, narcotics or other psychoactive substances and bar citizen initiatives on that subject, and HJR 6, which would make English the official state language in the constitution. VoteIdaho also lists a state advisory question on guns for the same ballot.

When you describe any of these at a meeting, in testimony or online, start from the official ballot titles and text on VoteIdaho, know what both the sponsors and the organized opposition say, and keep the facts separate from your own view of the measure.