In more than half the country, if you’re not already registered to vote, it’s already too late to cast a ballot in midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, state legislatures and numerous state and local offices on Nov. 8.  Included in a slew of new restrictions on voting rights in 26 states controlled […]

Under a new law, thousands of Missouri voters could have to pay $15 to acquire the documents needed to get an ID to vote.  Wyoming voters also face their state’s new ID law, passed last year, which requires a government or student identification card to cast a ballot. Voters without one must present certain proof […]

Iowa eliminated nine days of early voting. New Hampshire took away ballot drop boxes. And Georgia made providing water to voters waiting in line a crime. In many states, nearly all controlled by Republicans, it will be more difficult to vote than it was two years ago. That’s especially true for lower-income Americans and people […]

In one state, a ballot will be mailed to every registered voter this fall. It can be returned by mail, or in one of numerous drop boxes. You can also cast a ballot in person, during a lengthy early voting period or on Election Day, with an average wait time of just 3 minutes. If […]

South Dakota is in court again over policies that disenfranchise Indigenous voters. Many counties eliminated absentee ballot drop boxes that were used in a limited way in 2020, and the state passed a new law banning private foundations and individuals from funding part of the expenses of running local elections when government support falls short. […]

In deep red Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers have taken a few actions in the name of election security since the 2020 presidential election that make it more difficult to vote. Lawmakers have passed measures to conduct random audits after elections, to alert law enforcement if more than 10 are registered to vote at a single address […]

Voting is, for the most part, easy in New Jersey. Over the past few years, the state has permanently expanded access to voting in several key areas. But advocates are pushing for a more complete transition to universal vote-by-mail access, among other changes they see as key to equity. During the first year of the […]

Texas has vacillated between occasionally prying open a smidgen of expanded access to the ballot box and then constraining it. It’s a state with a long history of voter intimidation and suppression — recorded since at least 1902, when it enacted an annual poll tax, designed to discourage Mexican-Americans, African Americans and poor whites from […]

Once a swing state, Ohio has turned solidly red. Extreme gerrymandering of legislative and congressional districts could keep it that way for a long time. Although Republicans control statewide offices such as governor, secretary of state and attorney general, the state is pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Because of gerrymandering, Republicans boast supermajorities […]

Days before Florida’s primary this year, a new task force, dubbed  the “election police,” arranged the arrest of 20 people, putting them in handcuffs and loading them into police cruisers.  Their crime? Voting.  In 2018, Florida residents voted overwhelmingly to end the state’s draconian lifetime ban on voting for people who have been convicted of […]

A judge has struck down a new law that would have allowed no-excuse mail-in ballots in Delaware this November, but upheld the state legislature’s adoption of same-day voter registration. Delaware allowed universal access to voting by mail two years ago amid concern about COVID-19. At the time, a different judge ruled that the change was […]

What does equality mean for the “Equality State” in a modern world? Wyoming got its nickname in 1869, before it was even a state, when the territory granted women the right to vote. In the 153 years since, waves of voter suppression tactics have followed closely after societal and political gains made by people of […]

Wisconsin, a key battleground state that has a divided government and was narrowly won by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election, has been a focal point of a nationwide Republican push to further restrict access to voting. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has vetoed six Republican-backed bills that would have put up more barriers for […]

Even though West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner claims that the 2020 presidential election results were “fair” in his state, he questions the results in other states and has used former President Donald Trump’s claims about voter fraud to justify changes advocates fear will suppress voter turnout.  Earlier this year, the West Virginia state […]

Washington state has steadily made access to voting more equitable in recent years and has long been a pioneer in providing universal access to voting by mail.  It’s one of five states in the U.S. that mails ballots to all registered voters for every election. The state has also made drop boxes more accessible. A […]

Under a Democratic-controlled legislature and former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, Virginia repealed its old photo ID requirements ahead of the 2020 presidential election, started registering voters automatically through the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and opened absentee ballots to any registered voter, without requiring a specific reason or excuse.  With a legislature whose control is […]

Over the past year, partisan gerrymandering during Utah’s redistricting process has resulted in protests at the state capitol and legal challenges by voting rights groups.  The League of Women Voters of Utah and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government filed a lawsuit alleging that the new maps — which were created last year after 2020 […]

Earlier this year, South Carolina’s state legislature passed a wave of new election restrictions in a state that was already one of the most difficult places to vote in the country.  Republicans in control of the legislature and governor’s office enacted S108 in May 2022. While it created a 12-day early voting period that hadn’t […]

A court decision finding no explicit right in Pennsylvania to “cure” absentee ballots rejected due to minor paperwork mistakes, along with state Republicans’ aggressive attempts to roll back widespread use of mail-in ballots, is setting the stage for chaos in this November’s midterm elections.  Along with a ban on outside funding of local elections and […]

Voting in New York is a work in progress. In the past year, the state adopted a new Voting Rights Act, but its voters shot down an opportunity to make mail-in voting broadly available.  In these midterms, advocates’ most pressing concern is the lack of education around unnecessarily complicated absentee ballot changes.  Deadlines to request […]