The Electoral Trust will provide the assistance of a legislative Research and Drafting Service to assist sponsors in drafting their initiatives, to eliminate ambiguity and reduce the chance that an initiative, once enacted, can be successfully challenged in court for technical or constitutional reasons. Such a service is normally provided to members of representative legislative bodies. Such a service assures an elevated quality of initiative texts and uniform legislative practice. Research avoids the creation of redundant legislative proposals and shares a compendium of knowledge relevant to all governmental jurisdictions.

Once an initiative qualifies for the ballot, a Hearing Officer selected by the Electoral Trust must hold hearings with testimony provided by supporters and opponents. Should this be done before the initiative qualifies so the proponents are given the benefits of such a hearing before drafting the measure? Some states provide for pre-circulation hearings in order to improve the quality of initiative drafting. There are two problems with pre-circulation hearings. First, in jurisdictions with many initiatives, requiring hearings on all initiatives—serious and trivial—can stretch government resources. Second, initiative proposals tend not to be given serious consideration in hearings as long as the measure has not yet qualified for the ballot. A compromise may be a pre-circulation review of the initiative proposal by a panel of experts to correct obvious deficiencies but no hearing; and reserve the full hearing process for post-qualification.

Stern & Holman, 2002, pp. 5-6

The Research and Drafting Service addresses this need.