New Analysis: States Are Introducing, But So Far Largely Failing To Pass, Trump’s Election Agenda
WASHINGTON — A new Voting Rights Lab analysis of 2025 state legislative sessions shows that the blueprint President Trump laid out to undermine future free and fair elections, including mandates to require “proof of citizenship” to vote, have failed to gain significant traction in the states.
While President Trump’s elections agenda, outlined in his March executive order, deals with a wide range of issues from mail ballot return deadlines to the role of federal law enforcement in elections, the key tenet of the agenda would require Americans to provide proof of their citizenship, which in most cases would mean a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote. This policy, which also mirrors the SAVE Act that passed the U.S. House in April but has stalled in the Senate, would block eligible Americans from voting.
Despite twenty-seven states considering “proof of citizenship” legislation in 2025 — nearly four times the number in 2023 — just two (Wyoming and Indiana) saw a bill become law in the first half of this year, according to the Voting Rights Lab analysis.
“President Trump’s priority of mandating every American show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote has hit a brick wall in Congress, state legislatures, and the courts,” said Samantha Tarazi, co-founder and CEO of Voting Rights Lab. “The idea breaks down as soon as you scratch the surface — ‘proof of citizenship’ mandates would block millions of married women, seniors, low-income, and rural voters from the ballot box. Ultimately, state lawmakers came to recognize that meant blocking access for millions of their own voters.”
Other key policies of President Trump’s election agenda that have shown up in the 2025 state legislative sessions including:
- Mandating all mail ballots be received by Election Day, no matter how much earlier they were postmarked: Lawmakers in 12 states — out of 18 that started the year with postmark deadlines — considered bills that would require ballots to be received by the close of polls, regardless of when voters put them in the mail. In the first half of this year, three states eliminated their postmark grace period: Kansas, North Dakota, and Utah.
- Imposing new burdens on military and overseas voters: Numerous states have considered — and are still considering — new requirements for overseas and military voters, including requiring proof of residency and stricter ID requirements.
The full analysis of 2025 legislative sessions can be found here.
Voting Rights Lab is a nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brings state policy and legislative expertise to the fight for voting rights. We work in partnership with organizations across the country to secure, protect, and defend the voting rights of all Americans. And we track voting laws and legislation in all 50 states at tracker.votingrightslab.org.