The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration, August 9, 2024

All 10 of the bills that passed one or both chambers or were enacted during the past week were in states with Democratic trifectas.

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 10 bills state legislatures acted on since our last edition.

Legislative highlights

• Seven bills have been approved since our last edition. Three hundred sixty bills have been enacted so far in 2024, compared to 575 in 2023 and 210 in 2022.
• State legislatures acted on 10 bills this week, five fewer than last week.

• Democrats sponsored nine (90%) of the bills active over the past week. One (10%) bill was sponsored by a committee.
• Ten (100%) of the bills active over the past week were in states with Democratic trifectas.
• Ten bills passed one or both chambers or were enacted during the past week. All 10 were in Democratic trifectas, and of those, Democrats sponsored nine.
• The top bill topics this week were:

1. Election types and contest-specific procedures (8)
2. Absentee/mail-in voting (1)
3. Ballots and voting materials (1)
4. Ballot verification (1)
5. Election dates and deadlines (1)
6. Election officials and workers (1)
7. Enforcement and election fraud (1)
8. Legal conflicts and litigation (1)

Recent activity

Enacted bills

Seven election-related bills have been approved since our last edition, compared to five in 2023 and none in 2022 during the same week. To see all enacted bills, click here.

New York (Democratic trifecta)

• NY A03250: Relates to allowing pre-registered voters to apply for an absentee or early mail ballot.
• NY A10357: Makes amendments to the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York regarding definition of certain terms and enforcement provisions; specifies certain deceptive and fraudulent acts; relates to notification of violations; relates to preclearance of policies by the civil rights bureau or by a designated court; requires notification to the civil rights bureau of actions involving voting rights.
• NY S09837: Requires the board of elections to provide a domestic postage paid return envelope which a voter may use to return a cure affirmation in paper form by mail; provides that a cure affirmation may be delivered in person, by mail or in electronic form as an attachment to an email.
• NY S09763: Relates to when a referendum is required when a village has provided that village elections shall occur on the same day as the general election.
• NY S05943: Modifies the order in which candidates appear on the ballot; requires that offices shall be listed on the ballot in descending order based on the size of the electorate and requires certain federal offices to be listed before state, county or local offices.

Illinois (Democratic trifecta)

• IL HB3144: DCEO-CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Delaware (Democratic trifecta)

• DE SB243: An Act To Amend The Charter Of The Village Of Ardencroft.

Bills that passed both chambers

No bills have passed both chambers since our last edition. To see all bills that currently await gubernatorial action, 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 10 bills with activity over the previous week, all were in states with Democratic 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 360 bills so far this year, compared to 575 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-nine of the election-related bills passed this year (22.6%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 216 (61.7%) are in states with a Republican trifecta, and 55 (15.7%) 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 3,777 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, 1,147 (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, 1,765 (46.7%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 1,367 (36.2%) are in states with Republican trifectas, and 645 (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.