The good news for the campaign is that it has a decent lead and it is currently over the all-important 50 percent mark. If the initiative can simply maintain its current level of support it would narrowly win approval and become law in the Colorado.
The bad news for the campaign is that ballot initiatives tend to lose some support as the election nears. Undecided voters tend to break against initiatives. Holding on to an eleven point lead is an achievable but difficult task for a ballot measure.

An initiative that would allow medical marijuana will very likely be on the November ballot in North Dakota. Just days before the filing deadline North Dakotans for Compassionate Care turned in just over 20,000 signatures to qualify their measure, almost twice the minimum required.

This November the voters of Massachusetts will have the opportunity to make their state the 18th to allow for the medical use of marijuana. According to Wickedlocal the Committee for Compassionate Medicine managed to turn in enough signatures in the second round of signature collection to have their initiative placed on the ballot.

This November the voters in our nation’s capital will likely have the opportunity to ban campaign donations by corporations to local politicians. The Group D.C. Public Trust recently turned in over 30,000 signature to get their initiative on the ballot this year.

The California based organization, Consumer Watchdog, is looking to put a measure on the 2012 November ballot in California that would create a public health insurance option in the state and provide state regulators more control of premiums.

In Minnesota, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is going to appear on the 2012 ballot, where it will likely become a big focus of activism this election on both sides.

Local organizers in Oregon have begun the push to gather the required 87,213 signatures to put the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2012 (OCTA 2012) on the ballot in 2012, now that the petition has been approved by the Secretary of State.

After World War II, the use of citizen initiatives dropped dramatically as booming populations made gathering sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot a more daunting task. During the ’50s and ’60s statewide ballot initiatives became rare, and much like today, many of the initiatives that did appear were thanks to big corporate spending. This all changed in the early ’70s, thanks in large part to the California couple Edwin and Joyce Koupal and their People’s Lobby.

For turn of the century Progressives, Populists and good government reformers, securing the right of direct democracy was often a top goal. Individuals such as Samuel Gompers, Robert La Follette, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Jennings Bryan all advocated for direct democracy through ballot initiatives and referendums. Because of efforts by Progressives, Populists, women’s suffrage advocates, Socialists, government reform advocates and organized labor, the right to direct democracy was secured in almost all Western states.

Interview with Dale Sky Clare, Executive Chancellor of Oaksterdam University and Spokesperson for Control and Tax Cannabis 2010.