2021 was a historic year for election legislation, with nearly 2,500 election-related bills introduced in all 50 states resulting in 220 bills ultimately enacted. Significantly fewer bills impacting voter access have been enacted in 2022 compared to 2021 so far. This...
Reports
Early Voting Gains Ground Heading into the 2022 Primaries
In recent years, we’ve witnessed an onslaught of election-related legislation that is pulling the nation in two directions. On the one hand, many states have taken steps to erode participation in our democracy, creating hurdles to casting a ballot and interfering with...
Treating the Voting Booth like a Crime Scene: The Hypercriminalization of Elections
To date in 2022, 14 states have introduced 46 bills that would escalate the investigation or prosecution of purported election crimes.
Women and Attacks on Election Administration
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, legislators in statehouses around the country have proposed legislation that would disrupt the administration of our elections – often based on unfounded concerns over election security and so-called voter fraud. Our team at the...
Election Subversion Threats: 2024 Battleground States
Recent reporting has made it all the more clear just how close we came to having the will of the American people overturned by politicians and accomplices willing to do anything to cling to power. What held back the dam? As journalist Barton Gellman explained in The...
Showdown 2022: The State of State Election Law – and the Fights Ahead
In “Showdown 2022: The State of State Election Law – and the Fights Ahead,” we take a comprehensive look at where states landed on election-related policies by the end of 2021 – and forecast key issues that are already emerging in 2022 state legislative...
2021 Year in Review for Voting Rights: A Look Back at Voting Legislation in the States
Much of the attention over the 2021 and in the early weeks of 2022 has been on the failure of federal legislation to secure voting rights. But, as always, much of the movement has taken place at the state level. State legislatures proposed nearly three thousand bills...
The Year in Review for Voting Rights: Five Achievements and Five Setbacks
2021 has been a historic year for voting rights policy. We tracked nearly 3,000 bills moving in all 50 states and D.C. this year, resulting in almost 300 new laws – both pro- and anti-voter. While voting rights advocates spent much of 2021 defending against attacks on...
DECEMBER UPDATE: A Tale of Two Democracies
The Voting Rights Lab made critical updates to its report, A Tale of Two Democracies, first released in June and updated in September, demonstrating how a wave of state legislation on voting rights and election administration is transforming our democracy, creating a...
Three Takeaways from the 2021 Elections
This year, expanded voter access in Virginia resulted in record turnout for an off-cycle election. Both Democrats and Republicans turned out in higher numbers than in 2017, the last gubernatorial election year, and a Republican victory refutes the claim that expanded...