# Legislative Referral A question put to a state's voters by a vote of its legislature. It is the commonest way an American constitutional amendment reaches a ballot, and it is procedurally unlike the citizen petition: there are no signatures to gather, no circulators to license, no county distribution requirement and no officer-written ballot title to contest. The threshold is set by the state constitution and is the whole of what a referral must clear. A simple majority in one session suffices in ten states; three-fifths in nine; two-thirds in seventeen; a majority in two successive sessions in seven; and four states accept either a supermajority once or a majority twice. Delaware is the single exception to the pattern: two successive legislatures voting at two-thirds amend the state constitution outright, with no vote of the people. The other forty-nine states require voter approval. A handful of states cap how many amendments one session may refer — three in Arkansas, four in Kentucky, five in Kansas — and some bar a rejected amendment from returning for a set number of years. ## See also - [[How a State Legislature Makes Law]] - [[How a Ballot Measure Gets on the Ballot]]