Voters who feel like they need a college degree to understand the initiatives on their state ballots, take heart: You’re not wrong.

The 159 state ballot measures across 41 states on the Nov. 5 ballot are written at an average education level equivalent to that of a bachelor’s degree, according to the Ballotpedia annual Readability Report.

The report measured ballot titles and summaries using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease formulas, which base their ratings on factors such as the number of syllables, words and sentences in the text, but not the complexity of the ideas.

The higher the score, the more difficult the language structure.

“The average FKGL for ballot titles, also known as ballot questions, was 16, which correlates with a bachelor’s degree,” said the report released Tuesday. “The average FRE for ballot titles was 20, which also corresponds with college graduate.”

On the plus side, the 2024 state ballot measures are more readable on average than those in 2023 and 2022, when the readability level was 19.

Alabama voters may want to crack open their thesauruses. The state’s ballot initiatives had the highest average readability level at 28, while New Hampshire’s measures scored the lowest average at seven, which corresponds to a seventh-grade reading level.

The initiative with the highest reading difficult level was Maine Question 2, the Science and Technology Research and Commercialization Bond Issue, which scored a 42.

“While no formal education level, including post-graduate, corresponds to a 42nd-grade level, this indicates that the language structure is advanced or difficult, at least based on the FKGL,” said the report’s analysis.

The easiest to read? Florida Amendment 2, whose title, “Right to Hunt and Fish,” scored a -2, corresponding to two years below first-grade level.

When ranked by topic, the 11 state measures on abortion were the most difficult to understand, scoring an average of 17 for their titles and summaries.

The six state ballot initiatives on wages were the easiest to comprehend, scoring an average of 11 for their title and 12 for their summaries.

Other popular topics on the Nov. 5 ballot include measures codifying citizen-only requirements for voting, which are on the ballot in eight states; implementing new vote-counting systems, such as ranked-choice voting, which are on the ballot in 11 states, and school choice, on three state ballots.

The average number of words in a ballot title was 68, but some were much more long-winded.

Ohio Issue 1, a measure to establish a redistricting commission, came in at 940 words, which was the longest ballot title since Ballotpedia began tracking initiative readability in 2017.

Ballot measures written by legislatures had an average score of 17, while those initiated by citizens tended to be easier to read, with an average score of 15. But the biggest variable behind a measure’s readability was its state of origin.

“The most significant factor driving readability differences isn’t the type or topic of the ballot measure, but the state,” said Ryan Byrne, Ballotpedia managing editor. “There are substantial variations from state to state, highlighting that the ballot measure process, in all its aspects, even sentence structure, is fundamentally a state-based process.”

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.