The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration, March 14, 2025

By

Ballotpedia staff

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 633 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.

Weekly highlights

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

Lawmakers in 44 states acted on 633 bills over the last week, 10 fewer than last week. 

  • Twelve bills were enacted this week. Ten bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 19 bills were enacted in 2023, and eight bills were enacted in 2022.
  • Legislators acted on 433 bills in 2024, 379 in 2023, and 306 bills in 2022 during the same week. 
  • One hundred forty-five of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 392 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 95 are in states with a divided government.  
  • The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (173), campaign finance (94), and voter registration and list maintenance (77).
  • We are currently following 3,546 bills. We were following 1,889 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 March 13, the Kansas State Legislature passed SB4, a bill that would change the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots by a county election officer from the third day after the election to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Governor Laura Kelly (D) is expected to veto the bill. 
  • On March 13, the group Judicial Watch sued the state of California over a state law allowing election officials to count ballots received up to seven days after Election Day. In the complaint, the group said, “Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and uniform national Election Day, California modified and extended Election Day by allowing seven additional days after Election Day for receipt of vote-by-mail ballots.”
  • On March 12, Wisconsin’s 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that disabled voters cannot receive absentee ballots by email, overturning a Dane County Circuit Court judge’s decision. Judges Mark Gundrum, Shelley Grogan, and Maria Lazar wrote that the lower court’s ruling “significantly disrupted the status quo” because Wisconsin law only allows military and overseas voters to receive absentee ballots by email.
  • On March 11, a U.S. district court judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s absentee ballot request deadline. The lawsuit alleged the deadline of 11 days before Election Day violated provisions of the Voting Rights Act that allow voters to cast absentee ballots if they request to do so at least seven days ahead of the election.

Key movements

A look at what bills are moving and where. 

Twelve bills were enacted in the past week. There were no bills enacted during the same week in 2024, three in 2023, and four in 2022. To see all enacted bills and their full summaries, click here.

  • New Jersey (Democratic trifecta)
  • South Carolina (Republican trifecta)

Fifty-five bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here.

  • Kansas (divided government)
  • West Virginia (Republican trifecta)

Governors vetoed no bills in the past week. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, 2023, or 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

Twelve 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 3,546 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. 

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 1,315  (37.1%)
    • Republican: 1,692 (47.7%) 
    • Divided: 539 (15.2%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 1,330 (37.5%)
    • Republican:  1,790 (50.5%)
    • Bipartisan: 250 (7.1%)
    • Other: 176 (5%)

We were following 1,889 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 912 (48.3%)
    • Republican: 778 (41.2%) 
    • Divided: 199 (10.5%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 776 (41.1%)
    • Republican: 845 (44.7%)
    • Bipartisan: 149 (7.9%)
    • Other: 119 (6.3%)

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.