Ballot initiatives are notoriously confusing things. Even the very wording of the title that will go before voters can prompt court cases and epic political battles between partisans. Come this November 4th, voters in 15 states will have the chance to cast votes for more than McCain, Obama, Barr, or any other presidential candidate. They'll be asked to be the judge and jury on more than 150 ballot measures, ranging from California's Proposition 8 on same-sex marriage to Colorado's Coors family-backed Amendment 47 on the right of workers to not participate in a union. Complex stuff, but wouldn't you know it -- there are resources online that can help make sense of it all.

Now, a quick note on the presidential implications of ballot measures. Conventional wisdom about how, in 2004, socially conservative initiatives -- particularly same-sex marriage bans in 11 states -- helped re-elect George Bush to the contrary, researchers seem settled on the idea that ballot only drive up turnout the slightest bit (less than a single percentage point) in presidential election years. But what they do seem to do is to shape how voters view the top of the ticket.

Some time spent digging on the web turns up a few good resources that should help voters make sense of the ballot initiatives they might be facing in their state:

• Ballotpedia is put together by the Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based conservative "to-do tank." Ballotpedia has ambitions of being the Wikipedia of ballot measures and, like on Wikipedia, community-edited articles on Ballotpedia aim to adopt the NPOV, a.k.a., neutral point-of-view. How do they do? You be the judge. Some sample entries: on the California marriage measure and Colorado's "right to work" provision.

• The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is a progressive group with ties to the AFL-CIO, People for the American Way, Center for American Progress, and other left-leaning groups. Their Ballot.org site has three particular neat features. The first is a handy dandy map (seen above) that lets you jump from state to state to see what's on the ballot there. The second is that the site lists which groups are backing and opposing which initiatives. And the third is an issues navigator for tracking which issues are on ballots across the country, helpful for tracking patterns.

• The bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures has a remarkable Ballot Measures Database searchable by year, issue, state, and keyword -- with details on historic ballot measures going all the way back to 1902!

I've been digging into the spirited web efforts around California's Proposition 8 in particular, and may have a post on that tomorrow. Stay tuned.