Ballot Questions

How to Get a Question on the Local Ballot in Illinois

There are two ways to get a question on a local Illinois ballot. Your governing body (a village board, school board, park board or county board) can place it there by resolution, or registered voters can place it there by petition. If voters start it under the general petition rule, the question is advisory: it needs signatures equal to at least 8% of the votes cast for Governor in your unit at the preceding gubernatorial election, and the result has no legal effect (10 ILCS 5/28-6). A binding question needs a statute or the Constitution that authorizes it, and that statute sets the rules.

For the April 6, 2027 election, citizen petitions are due January 4, 2027, objections January 11, board resolutions January 19, and certification happens by January 28. The steps below take you from an idea to a certified question. For the bigger picture, including back-door referendums and recall, see our guide to Illinois ballot questions.

This is a practical guide, not legal advice. Confirm every number and deadline with your local election official, and have an election attorney review your petition before you circulate it.

Step 1: Decide what you want the question to do

Start with the outcome. Do you want to change something (raise or lower a tax rate, adopt home rule, change the form of government, create a district), or do you want voters to send a message to the board?

• If you want a legal effect, you need a binding question. "Questions which have any legal effect shall be submitted to referendum only as authorized by a statute which so provides or by the Constitution" (10 ILCS 5/28-1). Your first task is finding that statute, because it controls who can start the question, how many signatures it needs, who may sign, what the petition says and where it is filed.
• If you want to measure opinion, you can use the citizen advisory route under 28-6. The result is a public record of how your neighbors voted, which boards often take seriously, but nothing changes automatically.

Our explainer on advisory vs binding referendums covers the difference in more detail.

Step 2: Decide who will start it

There are three routes, and you may be able to use more than one:

1. Ask the governing body to place it. If board members agree with you, a resolution is the simplest path. For April 6, 2027, resolutions are due January 19, 2027. Come to a public meeting, make your case in public comment, and follow up with individual members.
2. Petition for an advisory question under 28-6, filed with the local election official or election authority.
3. Petition under the authorizing statute for a binding question that allows a voter petition. For Article VII questions (home rule and related local-government actions), a petition filed with the unit's clerk or secretary needs at least 8% of the total votes cast for Governor at the preceding gubernatorial election (10 ILCS 5/28-7).

Even if you plan to petition, it is worth asking the board first. If they place the question, you save weeks of signature gathering and can put that effort into the campaign instead.

Step 3: Check the limits before you start

Two rules can stop a question regardless of how many signatures you collect.

The three-question limit. Not more than three public questions may be submitted for a political subdivision at the same election, with exceptions for back-door referendums, tax cap referendums under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, and certain township and county questions. If more than three are started, the first three validly initiated go on the ballot (10 ILCS 5/28-1). Ask your local election official whether other questions are already pending for your unit.

The repeat rule for Article VII questions. The same proposition cannot go to referendum more than once in 23 months, or 47 months for opting out of home rule (10 ILCS 5/28-7). If your town voted on the same question recently, check the dates.

Also remember that a public question only appears on a ballot where voters are also choosing candidates (28-1). For 2027, that means February 23 or April 6.

Step 4: Get the number and the wording

Call or visit the office where the petition will be filed and ask three things:

• The signature minimum. For a 28-6 advisory question, it is 8% of the votes cast for Governor in your unit at the preceding gubernatorial election. The office can tell you the base and the number. For a binding question, the authorizing statute sets the formula; there is no single statewide number.
• Where to file. Advisory petitions go to the local election official or election authority. Article VII petitions go to the unit's clerk or secretary.
• Any form or format guidance they can share.

Then draft the question. It needs to be clear enough that a voter reading it cold understands it. For a binding question, the statute may prescribe the wording, so use it exactly. Have an attorney review the wording before anything is printed; a badly framed question can be challenged, and you cannot fix a petition after people have signed it.

Step 5: Prepare petition sheets that hold up

Under 10 ILCS 5/28-3, a public question petition must have:

• Uniform sheets with the same heading on every sheet, stating the question and the territory.
• Lines for registered voters to sign "in their own proper persons only," with their addresses.
• A circulator statement at the bottom of each sheet, signed by a circulator who is at least 18 and a U.S. citizen, sworn before a notary or another officer authorized to administer oaths.
• Room for sheets to be bound and numbered. Only originals are filed.

Signatures are collected in ink on paper. Electronic signatures are not an option for an Illinois public question petition.

Step 6: Collect signatures with a margin

Objections strike signatures, so do not aim for the minimum. Many campaigns aim for 1.5 to 2 times the minimum for candidate petitions; that is common practice, not law, and it is a sensible starting point for a public question too.

Set a goal, then plan where the signatures will come from. Door to door is slower than a table at the library, but the signatures tend to be better: you are at the voter's registered address, and you can see the street and house number they write.

Here is where the planning pays off. Build a walk list of your district's registered voters and route it. In Beacon, you put the voters in your village, township or school district on a map, split the area into territories so two volunteers never walk the same street, and give each circulator an optimized route. At each door the circulator records the result: contacted, not home, refused, moved, come back later, or left literature. A survey question such as "Signed petition: yes / no" tracks which doors produced a signature, and notes capture anything worth following up on. Beacon does not hold the signature itself; that lives on the paper sheet. The app tracks the walking, works offline, and syncs when the phone has signal again, so at the end of each day you can see which streets are done and which need a second pass.

Our how-to on collecting signatures for a local public question covers circulator recruiting, scheduling and sheet checks in more depth.

Step 7: Check every sheet and file early

Before you file:

• Confirm every sheet has the same heading and an original, notarized circulator statement.
• Number the sheets consecutively and bind them.
• Spot-check signers against the voter list. Signers must be registered voters of the unit.
• Count only the lines you are confident in, and compare that count to your goal.

File as early in the window as you reasonably can, and with the right office. For April 6, 2027, citizen petitions are due January 4, 2027, which is at least 92 days before the election, as Article 28 requires (10 ILCS 5/28-2). Get a receipt.

Step 8: Watch for objections

Any legal voter of the political subdivision can file an objection with the same office where you filed, and it is heard by an electoral board (10 ILCS 5/10-8). For April 6, 2027, objections are due January 11, 2027. If one is filed, you will receive a copy and a hearing date. Bring your sheets, your margin math and, ideally, your attorney. Our post on petition objections in Illinois explains how hearings work.

Step 9: Certification, then the campaign

If the petition survives, the local election official and the clerk of the circuit court certify the question to the election authority by January 28, 2027 (10 ILCS 5/28-5), and the election authority publishes notice. From there it is a campaign: persuading undecided voters and turning out supporters before April 6. Our referendum campaign plan picks up from here.

Quick reference: April 6, 2027

Get your circulators moving

A petition drive with a hard January deadline is won in December. If you want every circulator on a routed street list and a clear view of which doors are done, Beacon is built for that, and every plan includes unlimited canvassers. See how it works for local campaigns, or try Beacon free for 14 days and map your district this week.