The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration, May 23, 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 305 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.

Weekly highlights

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

Lawmakers in 29 states acted on 305 bills over the last week, 11 fewer than last week. 

  • Twenty-four bills were enacted this week. Twelve were enacted during the same week in 2024, 51 were enacted in 2023, and 16 were enacted in 2022.
  • Legislators acted on 197 bills in 2024, 143 in 2023, and 125 bills in 2022 during the same week. 
  • Fifty-eight of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 202 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 45 are in states with a divided government.  
  • The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (90), campaign finance (55), and ballot access (40).
  • We are currently following 4,518 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 2,537 bills.

In the news

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

  • On May 21, the Oklahoma Senate passed SB1027, a bill amending requirements for passing ballot measures and constitutional amendments. The bill requires 11.5% of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election to come from each county in order to adopt a ballot measure changing state law, and 20.8% from each county to adopt a constitutional amendment.
  • On May 20, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving citizen-led ballot initiatives related to voting and elections. Eleven Michigan legislators filed the suit in 2023 against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), arguing that they violated the U.S. Constitution by adopting two voter-approved initiatives: Ballot Proposal 3 in 2018 and Ballot Proposal 2 in 2022.
  • On May 17, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) signed three election-related bills into law. SB5077 expands voter registration services through a number of government agencies, while SB5014 implements additional cybersecurity measures for county election offices. The third bill, SB5370, submits a ballot proposition to voters to lengthen port commissioner terms from four to six years.
  • On May 20, the Ohio House of Representatives took up a bill that would prohibit ranked-choice voting and suspend state funding to local governments that use it. On May 14, the Ohio Senate voted 27-5 in favor of the bill.

Key movements

A look at what bills are moving and where. 

Nineteen bills were enacted in the past week. Twelve bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 51 bills were passed in 2023, and 16 bills were enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.

  • Alabama (Republican trifecta)
  • South Carolina (Republican trifecta)
  • Wisconsin (divided government)

Sixteen bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see the full list of all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.

  • Missouri (Republican trifecta)
  • Nebraska (Republican trifecta)
  • Wisconsin (divided government)

No bills were vetoed in the past week. Forty-nine bills have been vetoed so far this year. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, three bills were 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-four 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 21 weeks of each year.

All bills

We are following 4,518 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. 

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 1,669 (36.9%)
    • Republican: 2,113 (46.8%) 
    • Divided: 736 (16.3%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 1,730 (38.3%)
    • Republican: 2,194 (48.6%)
    • Bipartisan: 369 (8.2%)
    • Other: 225 (5.0%)

We were following 2,537 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 1,312 (51.7%)
    • Republican: 850 (33.5%) 
    • Divided: 375 (14.8%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 1,146 (45.2%)
    • Republican: 955 (37.6%)
    • Bipartisan: 296 (11.7%)
    • Other: 140 (5.5%)

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.