Since 1847, the NYS constitution requires that if the state legislature wants the state to take on debts over a certain $ amount, its 2 houses (the senate and assembly) would have to pass a law explaining the specific purpose of the debt, and then ask NYS voters if they want the state to take on that debt.

In 1915, the NYS legislature asked the voters:

Re Chapter 570 of the Laws of 1915, providing for "issuing bonds to the amount of not to exceed twenty-seven million dollars in addition to bonds heretofore authorized by the provisions of chapter one hundred and forty-seven of the laws of nineteen hundred and three, for the improvement of the Erie canal, the Oswego canal, and the Champlain canal, and for the payment of the improvement under such act, and providing for a submission of the same to the people to be voted upon at the general election to be held in the year nineteen hundred and fifteen."

And the voters said: Yes!