How Illinois' Advisory Questions Work in the 2024 Election

Illinois voters are going to the polls through Election Day, and all voters in the state will be faced with a series of advisory questions.

These advisory questions, which Illinois voters faced for the first time in a decade, cover a variety of topics, with election security, property tax credits and reproductive health care all being addressed.

What are the advice questions? Will anything happen if voters agree? And how often does a request for advice yield a legislative result?

Here’s everything you need to know about the questions you’ll see on your ballot. For complete lists of referendums, some of which are binding, that you can see on your ballot, see our list of referendums in Chicago and referendums in the Chicago suburbs.

What are the three questions for advice in this year’s elections?

All voters in the state of Illinois will see these three questions on their ballot.

Question 1: Should a candidate who appears on the ballot in Illinois for federal, state, or local office be subject to civil penalties if the candidate interferes or attempts to interfere with the official duties of an election worker?

Question 2: Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to impose an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000, for the purpose of spending the money raised on property tax reductions?

Question 3: Must all medically appropriate assisted reproduction treatments, including but not limited to in vitro fertilization, be covered by an Illinois health insurance policy that provides maternity benefit coverage, with no limit on the number of treatments?

All three questions appeared in SB 2412, which passed the Assembly in May.

Will the votes be binding in any way?

All three questions are ‘advisory’ in nature, meaning they are only used to gauge public support for various policy proposals.

A “yes” vote does not guarantee that any of the three questions will result in legislation being passed by the General Assembly.

How often are voters statewide confronted with requests for advice?

The last time Illinois had a statewide advisory was in 2014. Illinois voters were asked whether the minimum wage should be raised to $10 an hour, whether health insurance should cover prescription contraception and whether the Constitution should be changed to provide additional funding for school districts, increased by instituting a 3% tax on income greater than $1 million.

What happened to those requests for advice?

All three referendums passed, and Illinois lawmakers ultimately raised the minimum wage from $8.25 to $10. Another one a piece of legislation that established annual wage increases.

The state’s Department of Insurance says state-regulated insurance plans are required to cover abortion, including medication abortion. Both Illinois law and the Affordable Care Act also require coverage of contraceptive products approved by the FDA, according to IDI’s website.

The final income tax question would require an amendment to the state constitution, which only allows a flat income tax of 4.95% of net income, regardless of the amount of income a person reports.

Officials in Illinois tried to pass a graduated income tax through a constitutional amendment, but the measure failed in 2020, with “no” votes accounting for 53.27% of votes cast.