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 679 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week’s legislative actions.
Lawmakers in 39 states acted on 679 bills over the last week, 435 more than last week.
- One bill was enacted this week. No bills were enacted during the same week in 2024 or 2023, and one bill was enacted in 2022.
- Legislators acted on 365 bills in 2024, 351 in 2023, and 325 bills in 2022 during the same week.
- One hundred five of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 489 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 150 are in states with a divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (256), campaign finance (173), and voter registration and list maintenance (120).
- We are currently following 2,085 bills. We were following 1,366 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.
- On Feb. 5, the Arkansas House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs voted to advance three election-related bills. HB1221 would establish that ballot measure titles and signatures are only valid until the next general election. HB1222 would allow the state attorney general to reject ballot measure proposals if the attorney general determine the measure violates the state constitution. HB1223 would allow candidates for the Arkansas Supreme Court or the Arkansas Court of Appeals who already on those courts to use their official prefixes on the ballot.
- On Feb. 5, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) asked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) to withdraw a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the state over a 2021 election law, SB202. The bill prohibited anyone except poll workers from distributing food or drinks at polling places within 150 feet of voters waiting in line, required voters to provide a photo ID to cast absentee ballots, and limited the number of absentee ballot drop boxes.
- On Feb. 5, the Kansas State Senate advanced a bill prohibiting ranked-choice voting in the state. The chamber also advanced a bill requiring the return of absentee/mail-in ballots by 7:00 p.m. on the day of the election.
- On Feb. 4, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections challenging the state’s election procedures, ruling the plaintiffs did not have standing. The groups Maryland Election Integrity LLC and United Sovereign filed the lawsuit last year, alleging the board did not maintain accurate voter rolls and allowed the use of voting machines with error rates beyond the allowed limit.
- On Feb. 3, Maine legislators introduced a bill to end ranked-choice voting in the state. Three states use RCV statewide. Alaska and Maine use RCV in federal and statewide elections, while Hawaii uses RCV in certain statewide elections.
Key movements
A look at what bills are moving and where.
One bill was enacted in the past week. There were no bills enacted during the same week in 2024, none in 2023, and one in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- New Jersey (Democratic trifecta)
- NJ A5117
- Modifies the number of petition signatures required for candidates for state and local offices.
- NJ A5117
Three bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here.
- South Dakota (Republican trifecta)
- SD SB13
- Specifies that initiated or referred measures, if approved, take effect the day after election returns are officially canvassed.
- SD SB17
- Provides for deadlines for campaign finance disclosure reporting deadlines for campaign committees, political action committees, political parties, and ballot question committees.
- SD SB12
- Limits the amount of money a person can loan to a candidate or political committee by making loans subject to existing contribution limits.
- SD SB13
Governors vetoed no bills. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024 or 2023, and one bill was vetoed in 2022. 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
One bill was 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 2,085 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 668 (32%)
- Republican: 1,117 (53.6%)
- Divided: 300 (14.4%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 791 (37.9%)
- Republican: 1,046 (50.2%)
- Bipartisan: 129 (6.2%)
- Other: 119 (5.7%)
We were following 1,366 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 691 (50.6%)
- Republican: 537 (39.3%)
- Divided: 138 (10.1%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 576 (42.2%)
- Republican: 585 (42.8%)
- Bipartisan: 104 (7.6%)
- Other: 101 (7.4%)
See the charts below for a comparison of total bills between 2023 and 2025 and a breakdown of all 2025 legislation by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
