A representative from the Secretary of State’s office has asked the court to issue a decision before the Aug. 7 primary and insiders expect it will come before the end of July, but the court has not said when it will decide. Even if the ballot proposal survives the court, volunteers will still face competition for votes this fall as other efforts pop up to oppose it.

Last year, Hopkinson and thousands of other volunteers collected more than 400,000 signatures in less than six months to get the petition on the ballot, significantly more than the state requires.

Political consultants estimate it usually costs around $1 million to get a proposal in front of voters, with much of that spent on paying petitioners to gather signatures. Voters Not Politicians organizers say they didn’t have to spend on a dime on petitioners and are instead buoyed by volunteer workers. They now say they have around 10,000 volunteers from all over the state.

As of late July, the Voters Not Politicians ballot committee had more than 16,000 donations from individuals from almost every county in the state. The high number of individual donors stands in stark contrast with other ballot committees. By comparison, the ballot effort with the second-highest amount of individual donors — the one to legalize recreational marijuana — received 800 individual donations.

The state’s leading Democrats largely support the redistricting proposal and leading Republicans largely oppose it, though Voters Not Politicians maintains it is nonpartisan.

It touts former Republican state representative Joe Schwarz as one of its board members and Hopkinson said he works with Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians who are now active canvassers. Hopkinson tells Bridge that he identifies as an Independent because he has voted for both Republicans and Democrats. Several board members have donated to Democratic candidates in the past, a point raised by Republican critics of the ballot measure.

Hopkinson said he has talked to thousands of people about the proposal over the last year and around two-thirds of those indicated they support it.

“People get that something’s not working,” Hopkinson said. “They want the power back. They want the opportunity to have some say in what happens in their lives, and you can’t blame people for that.”