The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration, July 26, 2024

Governors have vetoed 32 bills so far this year, compared to 37 at this point in 2023 and 17 at this point in 2022.

Welcome to The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration. Every Friday, we deliver the latest updates on election policy around the country, including nationwide trends and recent legislative activity.

In this week’s Ballot Bulletin, we cover 15 bills state legislatures acted on since our last edition.

Legislative highlights

• No bills have been approved since our last edition. Three hundred forty-eight bills have been enacted so far in 2024, compared to 569 in 2023 and 210 in 2022.
• State legislatures acted on 15 bills this week, 37 fewer than last week.

• Democrats sponsored six (40%) of the bills active over the past week, and Republicans sponsored four (26.7%) bills. Four (26.7%) bills had bipartisan sponsorship, and one (0.7%) bill had sponsors other than Democrats or Republicans.
• Nine (60%) of the bills active over the past week were in states with Democratic trifectas, and six (40%) were in states with Republican trifectas.
• Ten bills passed one or both chambers or were enacted during the past two weeks. Five were in Democratic trifectas, and of those, Democrats sponsored two. Five were in states with a Republican trifecta, and of those, Republicans sponsored two.
• The top bill topics this week were:

1. Election types and contest-specific procedures (6)
2. Election Day voting (2)
3. Redistricting (2)
4. Voter registration and list maintenance (2)
5. Voters and voter qualifications (2)

Recent activity

Enacted bills

No election-related bills were approved since our last edition, compared to eight in 2023 and 10 in 2022 during the same week. To see all enacted bills, click here.

Bills that passed both chambers

No bills have passed both chambers since our last edition and await gubernatorial action. To see all bills that have currently passed both chambers, click here.

Vetoed bills

There have been no gubernatorial vetoes since our last edition. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2023, and none were vetoed in 2022. Governors have vetoed 32 bills so far this year, compared to 37 at this point in 2023 and 17 at this point in 2022. To see all vetoed bills, click here.

Recent activity by topic and sponsorship

The chart below shows the topics and partisan sponsorship of the bills with legislative activity over the past week. Click here to see a full list of bill categories and their definitions.

* Note: Contest-specific procedures refer to primary systems, municipal election procedures, recall elections, special election procedures, and other systems unique to a particular election type.

Recent activity by state and trifecta status

Of the 15 bills with activity over the previous week, (60%) of the bills active over the past week were in states with Democratic trifectas, and six (40%) were in states with Republican trifectas.

The map below shows election-related bills acted on in the past week by state trifecta status.

All legislation

Enacted bills by sponsorship and trifecta status

States have enacted 348 bills so far this year, compared to 569 bills in 2023 and 210 in 2022. The chart below shows the number and partisan sponsorship of enacted bills in 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Seventy-seven of the election-related bills passed this year (22.1%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 216 (62.1%) are in states with a Republican trifecta, and 55 (15.8%) are in states with a divided government. The table below shows the number of enacted election-related bills introduced by trifecta status this year compared to 2023 and 2022.

All bills by topic and sponsorship

The chart below displays the topic and sponsorship of a sample of the 3,766 total bills we’ve followed this year. Note that the sums of the numbers listed do not equal the total number of bills because some bills deal with multiple topics.

All bills by sponsorship and trifecta status

Of all the election-related bills introduced this year, 1,146 (30%) are Democrat-sponsored bills in Democratic trifecta states. Republicans sponsored 799 (21%) bills in states with Republican trifectas.

The chart below shows the percentage of all election-related bills by sponsorship and trifecta status.

All bills by state and trifecta status

Of all the election-related bills introduced this year, 1,764 (46.8%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 1,358 (36.1%) are in states with Republican trifectas, and 644 (17.1%) are in states with divided governments.

Of all active bills in 2023, 42% were in states with Democratic trifectas, 43.8% were in states with Republican trifectas, and 14.2% were in states with divided governments. In 2022, 37.8% of bills were in states with Democratic trifectas, 30.4% were in states with Republican trifectas, and 31.8% were in states with divided governments.

The map below shows the number of election-related bills introduced by state and trifecta status this year.