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Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature and Democratic governor have agreed on a series of minor improvements to voting access in the past two years. But an extreme gerrymander of the congressional districts has made representation of the state’s growing Black population less equitable.  Louisiana is one of four states this year that will be using a redistricting […]

New Mexico has steadily expanded access to voting since Democrats took control of state government in 2018, but continues to disenfranchise citizens convicted of felonies. Starting this year, people in New Mexico can register to vote up to and on Election Day. Previously, voters had to register at least 28 days before Election Day.  “With […]

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 […]

A ballot initiative that would sidestep a Republican-controlled state legislature and expand voting rights in Michigan has surpassed the number of signatures needed to appear on the November ballot, but opponents have challenged it on technical grounds. The measure advanced by voter advocacy group Promote the Vote would allow for nine days of early voting […]

For decades, multiple Indigenous tribes in North Dakota have sued the state for infringing on their voting rights, with mixed success.  In 2011, they were successful in keeping polling places open in Benson County after they were closed, and since 2013 they’ve both won and lost lawsuits over the details of North Dakota’s voter ID […]

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 […]

Unlike their counterparts in most Republican-leaning states across the country, legislators in Nebraska have resisted placing new restrictions on access to voting. But in November, voters will consider a significant one. Right-wing activists echoing former President Donald Trump’s false allegations of fraud in the 2020 election collected enough signatures to put new photo ID requirements […]

In the past two years, Oregon has improved multilingual access to ballot instructions, made it easier to register to vote and strengthened privacy and legal protections for election workers subject to harassment as former President Donald Trump spread false conspiracy theories about the results of the 2020 election.  Oregon has served as a decades-long model […]

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 […]

One in five Black residents of Tennessee are prohibited by state law from voting. In combination with numerous other election barriers, advocates say, people of color have been broadly disenfranchised by white lawmakers maintaining their grip on power in the state.  Tennessee has one of the most draconian laws in the country stripping voting rights […]

Voting rights in North Carolina hinge on the balance of powers between the three branches of government.  For now, North Carolina residents have broad access to voting beyond showing up at the polls on Election Day. They can cast an absentee ballot by mail without having to provide a reason, or vote early in person […]

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 […]

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 […]