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 216 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.

Weekly highlights

The big takeaways from the past week’s legislative actions. 

Lawmakers in 25 states acted on 216 bills over the last week, 18 more than last week. 

• No bills were enacted this week. Two bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, one in 2023, and two in 2022.
• Legislators acted on 274 bills in 2024, 275 in 2023, and 304 bills in 2022 during the same week. 
• Sixty-one of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 85 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 70 are in states with a divided government.  
• The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (51), campaign finance (46), voter registration and list maintenance (29).
• We are currently tracking a total of 1,189 bills. We were following a total of 961 bills at this time in 2023.

Note: In some states, legislators are able to file hundreds of bills per day. We are actively reviewing those bills to determine their relevance to election administration. As a result, during this period of heightened legislative activity, year-to-year comparisons may not yet account for all relevant bills introduced in 2025.

In the news

A glance at what’s making headlines in the world of election law.

Here are some of the newsworthy election-related developments since our last edition.

• On Jan. 22, the North Carolina Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit challenging approximately 60,000 ballots cast in a state supreme court race, sending the case back to the Wake County Superior Court for review. Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin (R) previously filed challenges to approximately 60,000 voters’ eligibility after two recounts showed his opponent, Allison Riggs (D), leading by several hundred votes.
• On Jan. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging a Montana Supreme Court ruling that overturned two state laws ending same-day voter registration and prohibiting compensation for absentee ballot collection. In October 2022, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional.
• On Jan. 21, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called a June 10 special election to fill vacancies in state House District 3 and state Senate District 19. The previous incumbents, state Rep. Joel Rudman (R) and state Sen. Randy Fine (R), announced their resignations effective Jan. 1 and March 31, respectively. The ACLU sued DeSantis on Jan. 9, alleging he violated the Florida Constitution by not calling special elections to fill the seats when the legislators resigned.
• On Jan. 17, the Minnesota Supreme Court canceled a special election for state House District 40B. The Republican Party of Minnesota and the Minnesota Voters Alliance filed a lawsuit with the court on Jan. 6 against Gov. Tim Walz (D) and other state officials over the date of the special election, alleging the Jan. 28 election date violated state law. The court did not set a new date for the election. 

Key movements

A look at what bills are moving and where. 

No bills were enacted in the past week. There were two bills enacted during the same week in 2024, one in 2023, and two in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.

No bills passed both chambers of any legislature. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here.

Governors vetoed no bills. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, 2023, or 2023. To see all vetoed bills, click here.

The big picture

Zooming out to see the macro-level trends in election policy so far this year. 

Enacted bills

No bills were enacted this week. The chart below shows the number of enacted bills in 2025 compared to previous years.

The chart below shows the number of bills enacted over the first 12 weeks of each year.

All bills

We are following 1,189 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. See the chart below for a breakdown of all legislation by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

• Trifecta status
  • Democratic: 340 (28.6%)
  • Republican: 682 (57.4%) 
  • Divided: 167 (14%) 

• Partisan sponsorship
  • Democratic: 473 (39.8%)
  • Republican: 577 (48.5%)
  • Bipartisan: 59 (5%)
  • Other: 80 (6.7%)

We were following 961 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

• Trifecta status
  • Democratic: 478 (49.7%)
  • Republican: 393 (40.9%) 
  • Divided: 90 (9.4%) 

• Partisan sponsorship
  • Democratic: 398 (41.4%)
  • Republican: 417 (43.4%)
  • Bipartisan: 71 (7.4%)
  • Other: 75 (7.8%)