In this week’s Ballot Bulletin, we cover 393 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week’s legislative actions.
Lawmakers in 37 states acted on 393 bills over the last week, 47 more than last week.
- Twenty-six bills were enacted this week. Twenty-five bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 13 bills were enacted in 2023, and three bills were enacted in 2022.
- Legislators acted on 167 bills in 2024, 148 in 2023, and 79 bills in 2022 during the same week.
- One hundred eight of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 239 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 46 are in states with a divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (150), campaign finance (67), and ballot access (64).
- We are currently following 4,418 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 2,459 bills.
In the news
A glance at what’s making headlines in the world of election law.
- On May 8, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed SB652, a bill reducing the number of possible election dates for counties, school districts, municipalities, and other political subdivisions from seventeen to five. The bill also amends the dates of special elections called by the governor, allowing additional election dates for vacancies in congressional or state legislative offices or during a state of emergency.
- On May 7, the Texas House of Representatives passed SB509, a bill requiring state judges to notify the attorney general before issuing orders related to elections. The bill requires district court judges to notify the attorney general when considering a temporary restraining order related to an election and to wait two hours after providing notification before holding a hearing.
- On May 7, a New York appeals court upheld a state law changing certain local election dates to even-numbered years to align with state and federal election dates. The court’s ruling overturns a lower court’s 2024 decision that barred the law from taking effect.
- On May 7, North Carolina Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin (R) conceded to his opponent Allison Riggs (D) after previously challenging a number of mail-in ballots in the November 2024 election. On May 5, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the disputed ballots will be counted as part of the official election results, in which Riggs led Griffin by 734 votes.
Key movements
A look at what bills are moving and where.
Twenty-six bills were enacted in the past week. Twenty-five bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 13 bills were passed in 2023, and three bills were enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- Florida (Republican trifecta)
- Iowa (Republican trifecta)
- Maryland (Democratic trifecta)
- Oklahoma (Republican trifecta)
Forty-six bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see the full list of all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.
Five bills were vetoed in the past week. Thirty-three bills have been vetoed so far this year. Two bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, one bill was vetoed in 2023, and no bills were 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
Twenty-six 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 19 weeks of each year.
All bills
We are following 4,418 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,633 (37%)
- Republican: 2,086 (47.2%)
- Divided: 699 (15.8%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,686 (38.2%)
- Republican: 2,157 (48.8%)
- Bipartisan: 351 (7.9%)
- Other: 224 (5.1%)
We were following 2,459 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,255 (51.3%)
- Republican: 831 (34%)
- Divided: 360 (14.7%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,089 (44.5%)
- Republican: 933 (38.1%)
- Bipartisan: 284 (11.6%)
- Other: 140 (5.7%)
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.
