A guide to all the ballot measures Arizona voters will decide in 2026

In less than four months, Arizona voters will head to the polls or mail in their ballots to cast votes in major state and local races. There will be several high-profile races to determine, including for governor, secretary of state and attorney general.

And that’s not all. For the second straight general election, voters will be asked to decide a number of ballot measures, either backed by the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature or brought forward by citizens through a signature-gathering process. So far, 10 of 11 proposed measures will be on the ballot come November, so far.

The measures, also known as propositions, include proposed laws to bar transgender girls from girls’ sports, to require every voter to show identification when casting a ballot and to place guardrails on the state’s school voucher program. Of the 10, four are currently facing legal challenges that could prevent them from reaching the ballot. The eleventh, which aimed to limit the power of teachers’ unions, has already been knocked off. 

Only one proposition is a citizen-led initiative. The state teachers’ union and another public education advocacy group turned in signatures earlier this month to get a measure on the ballot that would restrict the state’s school voucher program.

The other 10 measures were put forward by GOP state lawmakers through the legislative process. If approved, the concurrent resolutions, or ballot referrals, will go directly to voters and bypass Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen. On Tuesday, however, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Greg Como struck down one of the 10, a referral aimed at limiting the power of teachers’ unions. Como ruled the measure violated the state’s separate amendment rule, which requires that measures be related to only one topic.

Here’s what you need to know about the 10 measures that will be on your ballot in November.

Prop. 212: fighting school voucher abuse

Citizen-led initiative by education advocates: Change to state law. 

This is the only citizen-led ballot measure on this year’s ballot. Save Our Schools Arizona and the Arizona Education Association circulated the measure for signatures to place guardrails on the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program. The groups turned in more than 415,000 signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office in early July. 

The two pro-public education groups brought the measure forward in an attempt to limit and provide guardrails to the state’s controversial, billion-dollar ESA school voucher program, which allows families to apply for state tax dollars for alternative education expenses in lieu of sending their children to public schools.

The program has been rampant with fraud and abuse, with news reports revealing inappropriate purchases of diamond necklaces, iPhones, widescreen TVs and Kenmore appliances. Additionally, a recent report from the Arizona Auditor General’s Office found that nearly 2.3 million transactions, totaling more than $653 million in ESA purchases, were automatically approved without oversight.

If the measure passes, families would have to earn $150,000 or less per year to be eligible for the universal program, with exceptions for students with disabilities. Account holders would also be prohibited from using ESA funds for noneducational purchases, such as luxury goods or materials not associated with the approved curriculum. Eligible tutors must have graduated from high school and have a fingerprint clearance card. Schools that receive these funds must be accredited or administer state-standardized testing. Finally, if account holders don’t spend their ESA funds by July 1 of each school year, that money will be returned to the state for distribution to the state’s public school funding bucket.

Getting the measure onto the ballot wasn’t a smooth process for the two pro-public-education groups –– and not because the organizers didn’t have enough signatures. In late June, Republican lawmakers attempted to strike a deal with the teachers’ union to take all three of the ESA-related measures off the ballot and pass modest ESA reform in a special session. That plan failed. Still, both of the GOP-led ballot referrals have been tossed from the ballot in court challenges. One of those rulings is currently being appealed. 

However, the pre-election fight isn’t over yet. Pro-school-choice advocates challenged the legality of some of the signatures in court. There’s a three-day trial set for Aug. 7 through Aug. 11. The conservative-advocacy group, Arizona Free Enterprise Club, also filed a lawsuit challenging the approved language describing the proposition that’s set to be on the ballot. The lawsuit alleges the language is “misleading,” as if one family uses ESA funds to pay for tuition, the entire school that receives that money would have to meet state standards. An initial hearing has been set for July 31.

The measure would also invalidate any law or measure approved by voters on or after Nov. 1 — Election Day is Nov. 3 — that would violate the measure’s “prohibition on confiscating scholarship account monies,” according to a bill memo. This appears to target a citizen-led initiative, backed by the Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools, that would more stringently regulate ESAs and place an income cap on the benefit.

In a Save Our Schools Substack post, the group called it a “Trojan horse measure” that “uses military families as a pawn to cloak its true intent: to invalidate the Protect Education Act after voters approve it in November.”

The legislature-backed measure would allow the child of a military member to use the scholarship account funds toward tuition or fees at a postsecondary education institution, such as a public university, Arizona community college or accredited private institution. ESA monies are typically limited to K-12 education.

The prohibition on the confiscation of funds wouldn’t protect the account holder if they were found “personally responsible for illegal activity or wrongdoing,” failed to renew their account, or did not graduate or enroll in a postsecondary institution within four years of their high school graduation.

The joint group backing Proposition 212, the Protect Education Accountability Now Committee, challenged the initiative’s constitutionality in court. The measure is deliberately designed to “subvert the very democratic process it invokes,” the lawsuit’s complaint reads. Maricopa County Court Judge Joseph Kreamer ruled the measure was unconstitutional on Tuesday. That ruling has been appealed. 

However, that isn’t the only lawsuit about the measure. Top Republican legislators sued to block language from the ballot that would explain that the measure is a poison pill, meant to cancel out the other ESA measures. That hearing is set for Aug. 6.

“The Arizona Secure Elections Act puts the rules where they belong: in the Constitution,” resolution sponsor Rep. Alexander Kolodin — also a candidate for secretary of state — wrote in a press release.

Democrats argue that the bill’s vague language could cause significant confusion in the state’s election processes. The ACLU of Arizona said the bill would force voters to resubmit proof of ID every time they vote and would give the legislature “unchecked power to end voting by mail completely,” the group wrote in a social media post. 

Central to the issue is the question of how mail-in voters would provide ID. The identities of mail voters are already confirmed by comparing the signatures on ballot envelopes. Additionally, every Arizona voter must provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Arizona is the only state with such a law.

“Arizona’s strength in elections comes from giving eligible voters ample opportunity to cast their vote. Mail-in ballots, Election Day drop-offs, and early voting are essential parts of that equation,” wrote Katelynn Contreras, an ACLU of Arizona policy strategist, in a statement. “This is another senseless attempt by lawmakers to urge people to vote against their own best interests.”

The measure is also being challenged in the courts. Randy Keating, a member of Tempe City Council, filed the suit, arguing that the ballot measure violates the state’s single-subject rule for ballot measures as it addresses multiple election processes. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Adele Ponce denied Keating’s request to strike down the measure in a July 22 ruling. The plaintiffs have appealed that ruling.

Specifically, state institutions would be banned from requiring DEI statements in hiring, admissions, promotions, contracts or scholarships. It’d block public money from being used to fund public education jobs, programs or training regarding race-based preferential treatment and prohibit “requiring or soliciting an individual to confess race-based privilege or discuss the individual’s race or ethnicity.”

It’s the latest iteration of the willful conservative misunderstanding of what DEI initiatives are meant to achieve. Instead of giving preferential treatment based on minority status, as many MAGA types claim, DEI policies are intended to ensure that people from groups that have faced historic discrimination are given a fair shake.

In a statement, ACLU of Arizona policy director Darrell Hill wrote that the resolution could violate the First Amendment rights of students, teachers and administrators.

“Ideas are not illegal, and there is no ‘government-approved’ speech exception to the First Amendment,” Hill wrote. “The state cannot adopt a policy or rule that punishes faculty, administrators or students for expressing their beliefs or prohibits wide scopes of ideas from being debated at universities.” 

The measure is being challenged in court on constitutional grounds. Will of the People, a political action committee formed to oppose the GOP-backed ballot measures, filed a lawsuit to strike the initiative from the November ballot over potential infringements on free speech. There was a court date July 16, and Maricopa County Judge Julie Mata is currently reviewing the case.

If the local authority doesn’t receive voter approval to operate its system, it must cease operations within 90 days of the November election. However, if the city does receive approval, it may continue its photo enforcement operation for 10 years, until the question must be placed before voters again for approval.

It’s a culture war bill that takes aim at the small population of trans youth athletes in Arizona who almost certainly are not having a deleterious effect on girls’ sports. However, in a 6-3 ruling on June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can legally bar transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams at publicly funded schools and colleges. That ruling could unblock Arizona’s stalled 2022 ban on transgender female athletes that was struck down in federal court. 

Still, two pastors, backed by the Will the People PAC, sued to block this ballot measure from being on voters’ ballots in November, citing constitutionality concerns. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Greg Como denied the plaintiff’s request for a declaratory judgment in a July 16 ruling, which also served as the case’s final judgment. The measure will be on the ballot in November.

Notably, no one pushing such a ban has been able to say how many trans girls are actually playing girls’ youth sports.

In a statement, Hill wrote that “Arizona lawmakers continue to play cruel political games with the health, safety, and lives of Arizona children.”

“Too much of that money never reaches the classroom,” the resolution’s sponsor, GOP state Sen. Jake Hoffman, wrote in a press release. “This referral establishes a clear standard and finally holds districts accountable for putting bureaucracy ahead of students.” 

If a school district failed to meet this funding threshold, it would lose 25% of its state funding. After four subsequent years of noncompliance, that penalty would increase to 100% of state funding.

Save Our Schools called the measure an “unreasonable benchmark” that school districts “have not met at any point since 2003.” School advocates have also criticized the measure for running the risk of preventing schools from affording counselors and specialists who work with needy students.

Hobbs previously vetoed a policy under a different bill over concerns about tasking a department, whose main job is administering federal grants, with law enforcement duties. Additionally, the measure states that the designation will do nothing to help an asylum seeker’s claim — even if they’re escaping violence from the same organization the state has designated as a terrorist organization. 

Specifically, the proposal is an attempt by sponsor Hoffman — the driver of a Tesla Cybertruck — to remove an option lawmakers have to ensure that electric-vehicle owners pay a share of future road construction and repair costs that would otherwise be funded by a gas tax. With the rise of electric vehicles, imposing a mileage tax would help offset declining revenue from the state’s 18-cent-per-gallon gasoline sales tax.