Ballotpedia releases its annual Ballot Measure Readability Report

Middleton, Wisconsin--(Newsfile Corp. - October 22, 2026) - The titles of this year's 164 statewide ballot measures are written at an average reading level of 17 years of education, equivalent to a first-year graduate student, according to Ballotpedia's annual Ballot Measure Readability Report.

Individual measures ranged from a fifth-grade level for Idaho's advisory question on an official state gun to a 48th-grade level for Colorado Amendment 83, which would establish a right to hunt and fish. No formal education level corresponds to a 48th-grade score.

Why readability matters

For many voters, the ballot title is the only description of a measure they'll read before deciding how to vote. When the language is hard to follow, voters may misunderstand what a yes-or-no vote means or skip the question entirely. Academic research has found that ballot questions with more complex language are associated with more voters leaving them blank.

"The most significant factor driving readability differences isn't the type or topic of the ballot measure, but which state it's in," said Ryan Byrne, managing editor of Ballotpedia's ballots team. "There are substantial variations from state to state, highlighting that the ballot measure process, in all its aspects, even sentence structure, is fundamentally a state-based process."

Readability scoring

Ballotpedia's report uses two formulas, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and the Flesch Reading Ease score, to measure how accessible ballot titles are based on factors such as the number of syllables, words, and sentences. The grade level estimates the years of education needed to understand a text. The reading ease score runs from 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating harder text; anything below 30 is considered very difficult to read. This year's average Flesch Reading Ease score was 18. Both scores measure language structure only, not the complexity of the ideas or whether a title is accurate or fair.

2026 readability report highlights

• The annual average ballot title grade level ranged from 15 in 2019 to 21 in 2025.
• Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Tennessee had the lowest average ballot title grade level, at 10 years of education.
• Colorado, which had 14 measures on the ballot, had the highest average, at 33 years of education.
• The average ballot title was 81 words, ranging from an average of nine words in Alaska to 598 in Kansas.

Individual measures

• Longest title: The Kansas Elections for Supreme Court Justices Amendment had a ballot title of 927 words. It would have amended the state constitution to authorize the election of state Supreme Court justices and abolish the existing state Supreme Court nominating commission. Voters defeated it in August, with 61% opposed. Kansas requires the full text of a constitutional amendment to be printed as the ballot title.
• Shortest title: Alaska Ballot Measure 3 had a five-word title. The measure would amend state law to provide that "Only a person who is a citizen of the United States" may vote in any election.

Read the full report.

About Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia, the encyclopedia of American politics, is the nation's most trusted source of unbiased information on politics, elections, and policy. And as voters increasingly turn to search engines and AI to learn who and what is on their ballot, independent research ranks Ballotpedia among the sources those tools cite most often. Founded in 2007, Ballotpedia has grown from a small group of volunteers into an essential resource for voters, media, and researchers. A nonprofit dedicated to an educated, engaged electorate and a strong, healthy democracy, Ballotpedia employs professional editorial staff who research, write, and verify its content, and offers free access to 750,000+ articles at Ballotpedia.org.

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