Legalese vs. Plain English in Ballots Legal language (legalese) is hard to understand, especially for people who are not formally trained through careers in law. Legalese has been shown to impact decisions during jury trials, as well as contracts and legal documents. The effects of legalese on peoples’ understanding of ballot measures has not previously been studied. The present experiment tested the effects of legalese on people’s understanding of ballot measures. Six separate ballot measures from past elections – from several states, some successful, others not – were used in the current study, both in original form and altered to plain English. Ninety-eight subjects were recruited from the Human Subjects’ Pool and Facebook. Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups, “original ballots” or “reworded ballots.” Subjects were asked to vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ each ballot measure, and to answer questions regarding ballot measure wording. I hypothesize that subjects will have more difficulty understanding the original ballot measures than the reworded ballot measures. If this proves to be the true, this will have implications for how ballot measures should be worded in future elections.