Ballot measure signature costs, 2024

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Ballotpedia's cost-per-required-signature (CPRS) report analyzes the signature-gathering costs of ballot initiative campaigns. In 2024, 57 citizen-initiated measures were on the ballot—one on June 11, and 56 on November 5.

Note: Signature gathering costs were unavailable for four South Dakota initiatives and are thus excluded from the report.

Proponents of these initiatives conducted initiative petition signature drives, and the initiatives qualified to appear on the state's statewide ballot. Requirements differ from state to state, such as the number of signatures required, circulation period length, and other requirements.

CPRS is calculated as a campaign's total spending on signature gathering relative to the number of valid signatures required. You can read more about how we measure signature gathering costs below.

The 53 initiative campaigns with available signature drive data, including two campaigns that utilized volunteers for a total cost of $0, spent a combined $172 million[1] on signature gathering. The average petition drive cost was $3,248,171.02, and the average CPRS was $14.87.

HIGHLIGHTS
  • $172.15 million was spent on signature drives for 53 certified ballot initiatives in 2024.[2]
  • $3.25 million[3] was the average total petition drive cost in 2024.[4]
  • $14.87 was the average CPRS for 2024.[5]
  • Florida Amendment 3, a marijuana legalization initiative, was the measure with the most expensive signature drive at $23,086,166.00.
  • Montana CI-128, an abortion rights initiative, was the measure with the highest CPRS at $48.21.
  • Campaigns for 5 initiatives in California and 2 initiatives in Florida spent a combined $83.56 million on signature-gathering efforts, accounting for nearly half (48.5%) of all petition drive costs in 2024.
  • Across the five election years from 2016 to 2024, there were a total of 270 initiatives on the ballot. Campaigns for these initiatives spent a cumulative $533 million[6] on signature gathering drives.
  • The most-used petition drive management companies in 2024 were Advanced Microtargeting, Fieldworks, and PCI Consultants, Inc, which each conducted six signature drives, making these three firms responsible for 35% of signature gathering drives in 2024.

    • See the sections below for further information on the following topics:

    1. Defining signature drive costs and CPRS
    2. Findings by costs, issues, and petition companies
    3. Total cost of signature drives
    4. Data on CPRS
    5. List of initiatives and signature drive costs
    6. Signature costs by state
    7. Signature costs compared to previous years
    8. Factors affecting signature costs

    See also

    Other petition cost reports

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ $172,153,063.82
    2. ↑ A total of 57 citizen initiatives were certified for the 2024 ballot. Signature gathering costs were unavailable for four South Dakota initiatives and are thus excluded from the report.
    3. ↑ $3,248,171.02
    4. ↑ Excluding the two campaigns that used volunteers to conduct their signature drives, the total cost spent by campaigns utilizing paid signature gatherers was $3,375,550.27.
    5. ↑ Excluding the two campaigns that used volunteers to conduct their signature drives, the average CPRS for campaigns utilizing paid signature gatherers was $15.45
    6. ↑ $532,980,985.41
    7. ↑ $532,980,985.41
    8. ↑ If the average is lower than the lowest non-zero figure listed for a given year, it means that there were successful volunteer petitions drives with $0 CPRS.
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