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When Alabama rewrote its state’s constitution in 1901, it limited voting to wealthy white men and established white supremacy as a guiding principle for state law. The fact that some clauses clearly violated provisions in the United States Constitution didn’t stop state leaders. It banned anyone from voting who wasn’t a male over 21, was […]

Rhode Island changed state law this summer to remove three significant election barriers, but roadblocks including a strict voter ID requirement remain an issue, particularly for voters of color. The Let RI Vote Act, enacted in June, allows residents to vote by mail without an excuse, drops the requirement that mail ballots be signed by […]

Experts widely agree that voting in California is getting easier: All registered voters now receive their ballots by mail, which can be tracked through a U.S. Postal Service serial number. Voters in many parts of the state can visit any voting center in their county instead of having a designated polling place. California law recently […]

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 […]

Language and other barriers faced by Indigenous communities and the inability to get information to voters in broadband deserts caused a distressingly high rate of ballot rejections in Alaska’s June primaries. These problems exacerbate longstanding issues of inequity in access to voting and political representation in Alaska, such as relying on a postal service heavily […]

A record number of people voted in Iowa two years ago. Its Republican-controlled legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds responded by adopting a broad set of limitations last year that put up various roadblocks to absentee and election day voting. Voting rights advocates have called this legislation a blatant effort to suppress participation in elections after […]

Connecticut’s state constitution makes voting harder for people who can’t take time off from work, travel to the polls or navigate long lines, which disproportionately hurts voters of color. But a proposed constitutional amendment and a push for the Democratic-controlled state to adopt a version of the federal Voting Rights Act could change that landscape […]

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 […]

Maryland has been among the most aggressive states in the country over the past two years in making access to voting more equitable. Since 2020, the heavily Democratic Maryland state legislature has passed and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan signed new state laws that expand access to early voting and absentee ballots; improve voting access for […]

What advocates call a “cocktail” of new voter suppression laws in Montana, disproportionately disenfranchising the state’s Indigenous population and younger voters, were struck down by a judge in September. The laws, ruled unconstitutional, had been on hold under a temporary injunction since April. The decision could be appealed. All three laws emerged from the 2021 […]

Many aspects of voting in Maine are among the most progressive in the country. It pioneered ranked-choice voting. It’s the only place besides Vermont and Washington, D.C., that guarantees voting rights for all adult citizens, regardless of criminal convictions or incarceration. It has same-day voter registration, and automatic voter registration when getting an ID or […]

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. […]

Amid a failed attempt by supporters of former President Donald Trump to throw out the state’s 2020 election results based on false accusations of voter fraud, Republicans who control Arizona’s state legislature and governor’s office passed significant new obstacles to voting.  New laws allow for the purging of names from the state’s mail-in ballot voting […]

Nevada has broadly expanded access to voting in recent years, restoring rights for individuals convicted of a felony, establishing universal access to mail-in ballots and increasing the number of polling places and drop boxes.  It happened after Democrats won control of both the state legislature and governor’s office, but also under the watch of Republican […]

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 […]

Voting in Arkansas was made considerably more difficult by a slew of new laws last year that create stricter voter ID requirements, signature matching, a special voter fraud hotline (despite no evidence of fraud), earlier absentee voting deadlines and much more.  In March, an Arkansas judge found many of these measures unconstitutional, but the state’s […]

A single Republican state senator who rejects former President Donald Trump’s false accusations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election has blocked a slew of proposed restrictions on voting rights in Idaho. Her retirement this fall and the state Republican Party’s sharp turn toward Trump’s right-wing conspiracy theory talking points have advocates bracing for […]

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 […]

Colorado has continued to improve access to voting in the past two years, but advocates are urging an end to the state’s disenfranchisement of people who’ve been convicted of felonies.  In a different time, small improvements in voting access in Colorado would seem “niche” to wider observers. But baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud spurred […]

Missouri’s Republican leaders have long placed restrictions on voting that have been shown to disproportionately impact Black and Latino citizens. Since the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud led to his re-election loss, they’ve doubled down, passing a strict new photo ID requirement and making it a crime to […]

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 […]

Hours-long lines at polling places, baseless allegations of fraud and a law that makes voting more difficult have drawn international attention to Georgia elections. In a state with a long history of voter suppression, changes in advance of the 2020 election made casting a ballot easier for Georgians. Voters could drop their ballots off in […]

Under threat of prosecution because of Kansas’ new election laws, the state’s League of Women Voters has stopped organizing voter registration drives. A strict ID requirement — left to local election officials to interpret — prevents some people from voting at the polls. If a voter casts their ballot absentee instead, the state’s subjective signature […]

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 […]

Kentucky surprised many in 2020 when, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials reached a bipartisan compromise expanding vote by mail and early voting access in a state that historically had some of the most restrictive voting access laws in the country. Kentucky has continued to buck national trends ever since. Lawmakers in the […]

From voter registration up to and on Election Day to a weeks-long early voting period to no required voter ID, it’s easy to see why Minnesota leads the country with the highest voter turnout at nearly 80%. However, advocates said Minnesota could improve equity in voting in a few areas, including  increased access to absentee […]

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 […]

Voting rights advocates in Massachusetts are celebrating a series of pandemic-era measures made permanent in June, but obstacles remain that disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters. The VOTES Act, a voting reform law, expands early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. It was proposed by a Democratic-controlled legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Charlie […]

Vermont’s progressive election laws have put it in the top 10 among U.S. states in voter turnout for decades. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it switched to a universal vote-by-mail system for the 2020 election. Last year, it made that change permanent. It’s easy to register to vote in Vermont — something you […]

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 […]