How to read this project

Evidence and values

Evidence addresses what a measure changes and what effects are supported. The values rubric addresses how the project judges those effects. A score combines judgments; it is not a measurement of a policy's real-world impact.

Our principles use the wording ratified on September 28, 2026.

How we reach a call

  1. Establish what the proposal does. Read the operative text and official explanations where available. Keep a summary-only record provisional until its mechanism has been checked.
  2. Look for evidence about that mechanism. The research corpus collects cited findings about outcomes, affected populations, conditions, and uncertainty. A study from another place or population does not automatically predict the result of this proposal.
  3. Apply the principles openly. Explain which values support or count against the proposal. An empirical finding can inform a tradeoff; it cannot choose the project's values.
  4. Keep the difficult parts visible. Record the strongest concern, the limits of the evidence, and what further research or an owner decision would need to settle.
  5. Record the review state. Preserve the owner's actual direction. Keep a preliminary call provisional and leave unresolved cases visible instead of filling the gap with a confident answer.

What the current guide draws on

The September 30 review brought together 121 research records, proposal checks, topic research, and recorded owner directions. The public guide now separates three reviewed directions, 46 working calls, 71 unresolved cases, and one record identified as withdrawn in that review. These counts describe that review, not an independently certified election list.

You can follow the reasoning on individual pages, including free school meals, voting-rights restoration, and the Medicaid funding condition. Each keeps the proposed mechanism, the reason for the direction, and its limits separate.

Drafts and public recommendations

The guide separates three things: reviewed editorial positions reflecting recorded owner decisions; working calls that remain provisional; and unresolved cases where a factual question or value tradeoff still prevents a call.

These are editorial judgments, not validated numerical scores. Each page retains its sources, review date, and open questions. A source check establishes only what that source supports; it does not certify every predicted effect.

Draft and reviewed assessments are withheld from the legacy numerical scorecards. A research match or a place in the publication review queue alone does not promote an editorial call to reviewed.

Working research

The research pages contain automated syntheses and cited findings that have not been independently reviewed. A citation or confidence label is not a verification of a claim. Research pages are not approved voting recommendations.

Coverage

The project inventory is a working list. It may include older records or records whose ballot status needs reconciliation. Counts of score records are not counts of certified ballot measures.

Address lookup is unavailable. Use your election office's official ballot to establish what you can vote on.