The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration, September 5, 2024

All 22 bills with activity over the previous 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 22 bills state legislatures acted on since our last edition.

Legislative highlights

• Four bills have been approved over the last week. Three hundred seventy bills have been enacted so far in 2024, compared to 585 in 2023 and 216 in 2022.
• State legislatures acted on 22 bills this week, nine fewer than last week.
• Fifteen bills passed both chambers of the California Legislature.
• The top bill topics this week were:

1. Election types and contest-specific procedures (5)
2. Audits and oversight (3)
3. Enforcement and election fraud (3)
4. Voter registration and list maintenance (3)
5. Ballots and voting materials (2)
6. Counting and certification (2)
7. Voters and voter qualifications (2)
8. Voting security (2)

In the news

Here’s a rundown of recent news stories and developments from across the country on election administration.

• On Sept. 3, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision blocking a Montana law making it a felony to register to vote in the state without canceling existing registration in other counties within the state or in other states.
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) issued a statement to election officials in Bexar and Harris counties on Sept. 2 saying their proposed distribution of voter registration forms to unregistered residents violates state law.
• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) issued a directive on Aug. 30 stating that only voters who are mailing their own ballots may use ballot drop boxes. According to the directive, a person delivering another voter’s ballot must either mail or return it in inside the elections office.
• On Aug. 26, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen (R) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving two state election laws the Montana Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.

Recent activity

Enacted bills

Four election-related bills have been approved since our last edition, compared to six in 2023 and four in 2022 during the same week. To see all enacted bills, click here.

Delaware (Democratic trifecta)

• DE SB298:
• Requires the town clerk or town manager in the town of Newport to give notice at least 15 days ahead of any municipal election.
• Requires a criminal background check for all municipal candidates at the candidate’s expense. Candidates are to be reimbursed up to $75 if they are elected to office.
• Requires the town to utilize the state’s voter registration rolls and eliminates municipal voter registration procedures.
• Eliminates referendum procedures to make amendments to the town charter.

• DE HB396: Requires the town of Delmar to use and adopt the state’s voter registration system as the source of its list of registered voters. The town reserves the right to deny any names of voters from the state’s registration list who have either moved from the town, no longer own property within the incorporated town limits, or are disqualified from voting as listed within this town charter.
• DE SB316: Authorizes the town of Slaughter Beach to extend its municipal boundaries by annexing contiguous territory and establishes the procedures to do so, including a receiving a request from the proposed annexed territory’s property owners to become part of the town, the creation of a town annexation committee, holding a public hearing, the adoption of a resolution by the town council establishing the date, time, and location of a special election to vote on the proposed annexation, and the manner in which to conduct the special election.

New Jersey (Democratic trifecta)

• NJ S2837: Permits a district without a school board to submit to the voters at a special election a separate proposal for additional funds for the subsequent budget year or to increase the adjusted tax levy for the subsequent school budget year by more than the allowable amount authorized.

Bills that passed both chambers

Sixteen bills have passed both chambers since our last edition. Click on individual bills for more information. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.

California (Democratic trifecta)

Massachusetts (Democratic trifecta)

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 state

Of the 22 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

States have enacted 370 bills so far this year, compared to 585 bills in 2023 and 216 in 2022. The chart below shows the number of enacted bills in 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Ninety-seven of the election-related bills passed this year (26.2%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 221 (59.7%) are in states with a Republican trifecta, and 52 (14.1%) are in states with a divided government. The chart below shows enacted election-related bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

All bills

Of all the election-related bills introduced this year, 1,768 (46.7%) are in states with Democratic trifectas, 1,370 (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 chart below shows election-related bills introduced by partisan sponsorship and trifecta status this year.