In addition to the vast number of elections for positions ranging from the U.S. Senate to local city councils, U.S. midterm voters in 39 states will vote on 145 ballot initiatives. Some are minor technical adjustments to statutes or state constitutional provisions that require voter approval; others are more or less just “message” devices for one party or the other to drive turnout and/or put the opposing party on the spot. But the most significant of them fall into four broad categories: elections, taxes, corruption, and social policy. Here’s a guide to the most notable efforts.

Voting Restrictions and Election Regulation

. Frivolous voter eligibility ploys

Voters in 12 states will approve or reject initiatives designed (mostly by Republicans) to tighten up or reaffirm voter eligibility. To begin with the silliest set of measures, six states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia) will provide by law or constitution that only citizens may participate in state or local elections. Non-citizen voting is already illegal in federal elections, and none of the six states involved in this symbolic effort are among the handful that have allowed some localities to let selected non-citizens vote. The purpose of these initiatives is pretty clearly to reinforce empty claims by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that non-citizen voting is a major threat to the integrity of elections.

. New voter ID requirements

In another six states (California, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma) plus Arizona, the November 3 ballot will include measures to tighten or expand voter ID requirements. These have long been supported by conservatives (including most Republicans) to add another layer of prevention against illegal voting and limit voter eligibility generally.

Most controversially, all these initiatives would impose new ID requirements for people voting by mail, which significantly complicates that process. This would be especially problematic in states like California and Colorado that conduct all-mail elections.

Generally speaking, voter ID requirements tend to be popular, so the Democrats who will typically oppose these ballot measures are emphasizing their........

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