As the 2024 election approaches, a wave of new election laws will be put to the test for the first time in a presidential election. In fact, our team of state election experts have tracked over 700 new election laws across the country since 2020.
Guided by our State Voting Rights Tracker, our team analyzed and documented all of these changes, along with the effects of court orders and executive action, and we’ve whittled them down to the most critical changes in the seven states experts determine are most likely to decide the winner of the presidency. We found that for voters in Michigan and Nevada, this election will be more accessible than ever before while Georgia and North Carolina moved in the opposite direction.*
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Two swing states have improved voter access and election administration since 2020.
Michigan
Michigan voters will have greater ballot access in 2024 than in any previous election, thanks in large part to the Promote the Vote constitutional amendment approved by 60% of voters in 2022 and its implementing legislation. These improvements include: expanded opportunities to vote early in person and by mail; drop boxes for absentee ballots in every community; establishing a permanent mail voter list and requiring prepaid postage for voters returning mail ballots; expanding same day registration access; expanding acceptable forms of ID; and repealing a ban on helping people get to their polling place.
Additionally, the constitutional amendment will virtually eliminate the threat of boards of canvassers interfering in election results. This is an important election reform, given the rise of unsubstantiated certification challenges since 2020.
Nevada
Nevada lawmakers took important steps toward ensuring a smooth election this year, including making permanent the expanded mail voting access rules put in place during the 2020 election. This means that every registered voter will receive a ballot in the mail in the 2024 election. Other improvements to mail voting include: prepaid return postage for mail ballots; requiring drop boxes; and allowing third-party ballot return by anyone (prior law limited return to a voter’s family members). New laws passed in 2023 also improve voting access for Indigenous communities and citizens who are incarcerated. Indigenous people living on Indigenous lands now have the ability to register to vote and return their ballots electronically using the same secure system as military and overseas voters. In addition, local officials must meet with Indigenous tribes to coordinate polling and drop box locations on their lands. State officials must also provide resources at city and county jails to facilitate voter registration and mail ballot voting for citizens who are incarcerated but eligible to vote.
Two swing states passed new laws to restrict voting access and weaken nonpartisan election administration.
Georgia
In 2020, Georgia was the tightest race in the country, and experts expect it to be close again in 2024.
Since 2020, new laws in Georgia weakened voter access and paved the way for frivolous mass challenges to voter registrations. A 2021 omnibus election bill implemented new restrictions on mail voting, including ID requirements when applying for and returning mail ballots. Following the enactment of this law, ballot rejection rates in the state quadrupled from 2020 to 2022. The new law also restricted the use of drop boxes and imposed new burdens on election officials. Following its enactment, officials had to process over 92,000 frivolous mass challenges to voter registration. It also threatens members of local election boards of elections with removal and replacement by a partisan body.
These new laws come amid a flurry of new rules passed by the Georgia State Election Board this year, including a rule that threatens the orderly certification of election results by authorizing county election boards to pursue baseless inquiries into results and another requiring local election officials to reconcile ballot counts by hand after polls close. The new rules have triggered multiple lawsuits, and the Republican secretary of state and state attorney general have warned that these new rules both exceed the board’s statutory authority and will not make elections in Georgia more safe or secure.
North Carolina
Voting Rights Lab has sounded the alarm for years about threats to voter access in North Carolina. The state is now the strictest in the country with regard to mail-in voting verification: in a change since 2020, voters must produce a photo ID to vote, whether in-person or by mail. Mail voters must now include a copy of their ID along with a notary’s signature or the signature of two witnesses, and they must be received by Election Day to be counted (previously those postmarked by Election Day were counted).
The state also passed laws giving partisan poll observers more power at polling places. The 2023 omnibus law expressly permitted observers appointed by political parties to take notes, listen to conversations between voters and poll workers, move freely around the polling place, leave and reenter the voting enclosure, communicate by phone outside the voting enclosure, and witness any setup and teardown procedures at the polling place.
Access to voting in Arizona and Wisconsin stayed essentially the same.
Arizona
There have been no major changes to state voting laws in Arizona, a state that has been ground zero for election disinformation and attempts to restrict access to the ballot. Election officials will have more time to process mail ballots this year – thanks to a new law enacted in 2021 that allows election officials to process and tabulate ballots sooner.
However, with statewide races and the presidential election looking to be close, we could see conspiracy theories percolate once again. The state also has four new laws that were not in place during the last election. The laws impose criminal penalties on election workers for routine election-related activities, like sending mail ballots to voters who didn’t explicitly request one.
Wisconsin
There have been no major changes to voting access in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that state law allows jurisdictions to establish mail ballot drop boxes – as they did in 2020 – reversing a 2022 decision holding that drop boxes could not be used unless expressly permitted by legislation.
Pennsylvania implemented automatic voter registration, but voters are more likely to see their ballots rejected.
The 2024 election will be the first since Pennsylvania implemented automatic voter registration (AVR) – meaning voters will be automatically registered to vote when they obtain, or renew, a driver’s license or ID card (unless they opt out). Pennsylvania is the 25th state to implement AVR.
This November, however, recent legal battles around mail voting could usher in new roadblocks and confusion. In September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled counties must continue to reject mail ballots with a missing or incorrect date accompanying the voter’s signature, reversing a lower court ruling. In addition, all mail ballots must be received by Election Day in a change from 2020.
*This analysis serves as an update to our Battleground Report released in October 2023.