States decide major changes to immigration, voting laws and other issues on ballot measures

In Tuesday’s election, important laws and regulations were passed at the state level through various ballot measures.

Here are some of the key initiatives in this year’s election.

Immigration, voting rights

It is already a violation of the law for people in the country to register illegally to take part in federal and state elections and cast their votes.

However, some states proposed ballot measures that would ban illegal immigrants from voting at the state or local level.

Voters in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin all passed measures enacting such a ban.

Arizona voters passed a measure that changed immigration laws to give local officials the power to detain migrants in the country illegally and allow the state’s judges to deport them.

Ranked choice voting

Voters in the District of Columbia approved a ballot measure that would switch local elections to a ranked-choice voting system, in which voters rank the candidates on the ballot and the candidate with the most No. 1 rankings wins.

Voters in Nevada, South Dakota, Missouri and Oregon rejected the move to ranked-choice voting. While Colorado was still counting votes, more than 1.2 million voters – 54% of all voters as of Wednesday afternoon – voted “no” in their elections in ranked-choice voting.

Idaho voters rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed a 2023 state law that banned ranked-choice voting in general elections.

Other initiatives

Nevada voters also passed a measure requiring voter ID at the polls.

Voters in South Dakota, North Dakota and Florida rejected measures that would have legalized recreational marijuana for adults.