SB506

SB506 sets a neutral-wording standard for ballot propositions and creates review and enforcement procedures for certain local measures. A proposition must state the question with enough definiteness, certainty and facial neutrality that voters are not misled. The act was signed June 20, 2025, and took effect September 1, 2025, but its applicability clause limits the changes to petitions submitted on or after January 1, 2026. Standard and applicability; History.

For a home-rule city’s charter-amendment or petition-requested initiative or referendum wording, an eligible registered voter or authorized city representative may request Secretary of State review within seven days after the city publishes the language in its election order. The secretary must review it within seven days of receipt for misleading, inaccurate or prejudicial wording. After notice of a defect, the city has three days to draft a correction and must give the required election notice. If the corrected proposition is submitted and again fails review, the secretary must draft the wording. This process is not automatic preapproval of every local ballot. Review and correction process.

A court hearing a mandamus action—a request for an order compelling official compliance—must decide without delay and may require the city to use court-drafted wording. A person may also seek this remedy after a court orders a new election. The court may award reasonable fees, expenses and costs to a substantially prevailing challenger, but not if the secretary had found the proposition acceptable or had drafted its wording. Governmental immunity is waived only to the extent of that fee-and-cost liability, not for unlimited damages. Court remedies and fee exception.

After a final, nonappealable judgment finding the city’s wording violated the standard, the city must obtain the secretary’s approval of any proposition voted on at a city election before the fourth anniversary of the court’s finding. The city must also pay fair market value for legal services in these proceedings, despite a contrary home-rule charter provision. Post-judgment oversight and legal-service payments.

A political subdivision may not put its own measure on the same ballot as a petition-initiated measure if the two generally address the same subject or the government’s measure would invalidate or conflict with any part of the petition measure. A violating measure is void if proposed on or after the 180th day before the subdivision’s secretary receives the petition; a court may also prohibit its proposal. This restriction reaches political subdivisions, not only home-rule cities, and is tied to competing measures on the same ballot. Competing-measure prohibition.