Plain Ballot Maryland

Maryland general election, November 3, 2026

The plain-language ballot law, and how Question 3 got past it.

Maryland passed a plain-language law for ballot questions this year without a single no vote. Each question must now say, in plain words, what a vote for and a vote against would do. Questions 1 and 2 on this year’s ballot do. Question 3 does not.

The law

Four tries. Passed on the fourth, 44–0 and 135–0.

Senate Bill 29 was signed May 12, 2026 and took effect June 1. Three earlier versions had passed the Senate and died in the House.

  1. 2020Senate Bill 56Passed the Senate 45–0. Died in the House.
  2. 2024Senate Bill 495Passed the Senate 40–7. Died in the House.
  3. 2025Senate Bill 615Passed the Senate 47–0. Died in the House.
  4. 2026Senate Bill 29Passed 44–0 and 135–0. Signed May 12. In effect June 1.

What it requires (Election Law § 7-103)

A statement “in plain and clear language that: (i) a voter can easily understand; (ii) does not explain the legal mechanism providing for the policy change; and (iii) does not contain legal jargon or use double negatives or the passive voice,” and “a brief statement explaining what the practical outcome of each voting choice would be.” The Secretary of State certifies the wording by July 1, and the public gets 15 days to comment on it. The full amendment text is posted 90 days before the election.

One year, one clockThe law’s dates above the line, Question 3’s below. Every date for Question 3 falls after the deadline the law set.
  1. Feb. 5Senate, 44–0
  2. Apr. 13House, 135–0
  3. May 12Signed
  4. June 1In effect

July 1 deadline

  1. July 17Session called
  2. Aug. 3–5Exemption added
  3. By Aug. 14Posted, no for/against
  4. Aug. 26Judge blocks it
  5. Sept. 3Court rewrites it
  6. Nov. 3Election day

Dates from the General Assembly’s bill records, the State Board of Elections and the courts’ opinions. “Exempts” is the word of the legislature’s own analysts.

Sources for this section

The proof

It didn’t have to read this way.

Questions 1 and 2 on the same ballot say what your vote does. Question 3 does not. Here is Question 1 beside it.

Words spent telling you what your vote doesCounted from the printed ballot.
  1. Question 198 of 156 words
  2. Question 30 of 69 words

Question 1, as printed

Question 1Arbitration Reform for State Employees Act of 2026

Providing that each budget submitted by the Governor shall include proposed expenditures necessary to implement wages, hours, fringe benefits, health benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment in each collective bargaining memorandum of understanding with State employees, whether the State and State employees reached those terms and conditions by mutual agreement or through a neutral decider's order.

A vote FOR this amendment means that the Governor has to include money in the proposed State budget to pay for agreements between the State and its employees. Agreements might include changes to wages, hours, fringe benefits, health benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment. The Governor must put enough money in the State budget to cover the agreed upon pay and benefits for employees, whether those terms were negotiated or decided by a neutral decision-maker.

A vote AGAINST the amendment means that the law about funding agreements between the State and State employees stays the same.

  • For the Constitutional Amendment
  • Against the Constitutional Amendment

Question 3, as printed

Question 3Election Districts – General Assembly and Representatives in Congress

FOR the purpose of clarifying that certain requirements apply only to districts for the election of members of the Senate of Maryland and the House of Delegates; authorizing the General Assembly to grant original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Maryland to review the congressional districting plan of the State; and providing that nothing in the Maryland Constitution provides applicable criteria for the boundaries of a congressional districting plan.

Nothing printed here. What it could have said, in this site’s words:

A vote FOR: The state constitution would set no rules for drawing districts for Congress. Lawmakers could send any court case over the map straight to the state’s top court.

A vote AGAINST: Districts for Congress must still be connected, compact and equal in population, and respect county lines. Those are the rules a judge used to throw out a map in 2022. A court case over the map still starts in a local court.

  • For the Constitutional Amendment
  • Against the Constitutional Amendment
How hard is it to read?Reading grade level, scored by this site with the standard Flesch–Kincaid formula. A 2020 bill would have required ballot questions to read at a sixth-grade level; it passed the Senate and died in the House.
  1. Question 3, as printedGrade 34, off the scale
  2. Question 1, as printedGrade 28, off the scale
  3. Question 1’s “what your vote means”Grade 12
  4. This site’s sentence in plain wordsGrade 6
  5. This site’s “what your vote does”Grade 5

Sources for this section

How Question 3 got past it

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law.”

Five words in an August 3 amendment, adopted 99 to 36. The legislature’s own analysts wrote that they “effectively exempt” the question from the rules on timing and wording. The dates, in order.

  1. The new law’s deadline to certify this year’s ballot questions passes.

  2. The governor calls a special session for August 3, sixteen days after that deadline.

  3. A committee amendment, adopted 99 to 36, says the question goes on the ballot “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The legislature’s own analysts wrote that this “effectively exempts the ballot question from existing statutory requirements governing the timing and content of ballot questions.” The question went up without any statement of what a vote for or against would do.

  4. In court, the state argued that the law did not apply. Its reason: the legislature wrote the question itself. Judge Robert Thompson disagreed: “the legislature did not follow the very laws it enacted.” Senate President Bill Ferguson said the bill “keeps existing law whole.” Delegate Matt Morgan, who sued, said lawmakers “blatantly missed the dates, and then they tried to cover it up with some legal language.”

  5. The Supreme Court of Maryland ruled the missed deadlines were not a reason to keep Question 3 off the ballot, and rewrote the question. Justice Steven Gould, dissenting: “The General Assembly claimed the prerogative to draft the question; it should bear the consequences of drafting a misleading one.”

Whether the law legally bound Question 3 is a question the full opinion, not yet filed, may answer. This page states the dates, the votes and what each court said. The text, before and after the court.

Sources for this section

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Sources

Every fact on this page is sourced on the whole story’s sources list as well. Quoted wording is in the serif; this site’s own words are in the sans.