SAN FRANCISCO – While voters in New York may choose to vote on their coffee break, voters here may need to take a coffee break while they vote.

This election day, 16 questions will be on ballots across California. Many cities and counties pile local referenda on top of that. San Francisco voters face a total of 31 questions asking about everything from Indian gaming to the war in Iraq.

The three official voter guides sent to city residents run to a daunting 379 pages in all. Still in the mail: Governor Schwarzenegger’s privately funded 12-page glossy brochure listing his personal recommendations.

“At a college, people would demand course credit for reading that much,” a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, John Pitney Jr., quipped.

Some see the ballot measures as the only drama in a state where few of the elective offices are seriously contested.

“Frankly, it’s the only game we’ve got,” said Robert Stern, the president of a Los Angeles-based think tank, the Center for Governmental Studies. “We don’t have a presidential election. We don’t have a senatorial election.” (Technically, of course, both those offices are on the ballot here, though the results are not expected to be close.)

While many political analysts seem to revel in the complexity of the dozens of questions, a few complain that voters simply can’t be expected to manage that volume of information.

“I think it’s crazy,” said a former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, Peter Schrag. “I think it’s way too much.”

Mr. Schrag said the measure that has drawn the most national attention this year, one creating a state-funded center for stem cell research, typifies the kind of arcane issue that should be resolved by legislators and not voters. If the proposition passes, the state would issue $3 billion in bonds to support such research.

“It’s a flagrant example of what we call ballot-box budgeting. In a state that has deficits as far as the eye can see, I just think it’s a very questionable proposition,” Mr. Schrag said.

This week, Mr. Schwarzenegger joined a powerful coalition of politicians and Hollywood stars backing the stem cell proposal. Opponents include fiscal and social conservatives. In recent days, several liberal activists have also spoken out against the measure, warning that it would grant biotech companies the right to engage in genetic manipulation without adequate oversight.

Most analysts expect the proposition to pass, in part because it gives Californians who are angry at President Bush an opportunity to cast a vote that could be seen as a snub to his administration, which favors tight limits on stem cell research.

“It is a chance for a lot of people to stick their thumbs in Bush’s eye, but is that good policy for California?” Mr. Schrag asked.

Two gambling-related propositions have prompted the largest flurry of television ads. The measures, which are backed by some but not all Indian tribes, would set terms for new casinos and allow slot machines at certain non-Indian racetracks and card rooms. Mr. Schwarzenegger stars in ads opposing the initiatives. The popular governor argues that he can negotiate to get the best share of gaming revenues for the state.

The sums spent on the gambling questions are staggering. “It’s nearing $100 million,” said the executive director of the California Voter Foundation, Saskia Mills. “It’s amazing.”

Another voter initiative would rein in a law that has tormented California’s business community for years. In most states, a party who files a lawsuit must show some direct injury in order to proceed. Under California’s Unfair Business Competition law, lawyers can file suits without showing any injury. Often the attorneys have no client at all. Critics say this practice, known as the private attorney general provision, has led to small-business owners being threatened with costly lawsuits over trivial or nonexistent infractions.

“It’s become, frankly, a tool for extorting money out of innocent or almost innocent businesses of all kinds,” said a proponent of the reform measure, John Sullivan of the Civil Justice Association. “We’re already known in many quarters nationally as the shakedown state because of this law.”

In one case, a series of nail salons run by Vietnamese immigrants received letters from an attorney demanding thousands of dollars because the same bottle of nail polish had been used for multiple customers.

“We’re bringing California law into line with normal civil processes in all the other states,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Private parties should have a client if they’re a lawyer or should have damages if they’re an individual before going to court.”

Opponents of the ballot measure say injuries, particularly in cases involving the environment or breaches of privacy, can be hard to quantify.

The president of the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, Jamie Court, acknowledged some abuses take place, such as those involving the nail salons, but said those excesses have been exposed and pursued by state officials. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said.

Many trial lawyers oppose the ballot measure as a precursor to broader tort reform. However, they have been slow to donate to the fight against the proposition. Business groups have raised about $20 million for the battle, according to campaign finance reports. The initiative’s opponents have raised about $2 million, most in the last two weeks.

Mr. Court was blunt about the reason his customary allies in the plaintiffs’ bar have not ponied up significant sums. “It’s because it doesn’t affect them in the pocket. It allows class actions over money. It affects public interest groups, but it doesn’t affect the trial lawyers or their money,” he said.

Another ballot measure would change procedures for primary elections to allow the top two vote-getters to advance, regardless of party affiliation. Yet another would modify the so-called Three Strikes law voters passed a decade ago. If the change passes, nonviolent crimes and some others would be deemed minor and could no longer result in a life sentence.

A different referendum could repeal a state law requiring all medium and large employers to pay 80% or more of the cost of health insurance for their employees.

Mr. Pitney said the plethora of initiatives is a logical but imperfect response to intransigence among the state’s highly polarized legislators.

“The knock against ballot propositions is that voters don’t read and study them carefully. The truth is, neither does the Legislature,” he said. “It’s not a particularly good way to make laws until you compare it to Sacramento.”

Mr. Schrag countered that costly and inflexible ballot measures are the cause of much of the gridlock. “One of the reasons government is paralyzed is because all these initiatives have passed,” he said.