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 212 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week’s legislative actions.
Lawmakers in 23 states acted on 212 bills over the last week, 98 fewer than last week.
- Nineteen bills were enacted this week. Twelve bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 22 were enacted in 2023, and 20 were enacted in 2022.
- Legislators acted on 120 bills in 2024 and 105 in 2023 during the same week.
- Ninety-four of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 80 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 38 are in states with a divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (52), campaign finance (50), and voter registration and list maintenance (26).
- We are currently following 4,546 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 2,585 bills.
In the news
A glance at what’s making headlines in the world of election law.
- On June 5, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) asked lawmakers to revise SB01405, a bill that would require the Legislature to confirm candidates for executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC). Under current law, the executive director is hired in the same manner as other SEEC employees.
- On June 5, Republicans in the Michigan House of Representatives sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), alleging that Benson refused to allow the chamber to review election training materials. Benson said her office has turned over more than 3,000 pages of documents, but that sharing certain other materials “could be used to interfere with the chain of custody of ballots, tamper with election equipment or impersonate a clerk on Election Day.”
- On June 2, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed two election related bills. HF954 allows the secretary of state to establish contracts with state and federal agencies and private entities for voter roll list maintenance. HF928 changes the state’s recount laws, requiring a 0.15% or less margin for statewide and federal races and a 1% or 50-vote margin for state legislative and local races in order for a candidate to request a recount.
- On May 29, Oklahoma’s HB1678 became law without the governor’s signature. The bill provides guidelines for election officials to decide tied elections by random selection and allows candidates to designate a witness to observe the process.
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, 22 were enacted in 2023, and 20 were enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- Colorado (Democratic trifecta)
- Connecticut (Democratic trifecta)
- Missouri (Republican trifecta)
- Nebraska (Republican trifecta)
- Oklahoma (Republican trifecta)
- Vermont (divided government)
Fifty-eight bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see the full list of all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.
No bills were vetoed in the past week. Fifty bills have been vetoed so far this year. One bill was vetoed during this period in 2024, six 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
Nineteen 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 23 weeks of each year.
All bills
We are following 4,546 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,684 (37%)
- Republican: 2,118 (46.6%)
- Divided: 744 (16.4%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,742 (38.3%)
- Republican: 2,201 (48.4%)
- Bipartisan: 377 (8.3%)
- Other: 226 (5%)
We were following 2,585 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,346 (52.1%)
- Republican: 853 (33%)
- Divided: 386 (14.9%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,176 (45.5%)
- Republican: 968 (37.4%)
- Bipartisan: 300 (11.6%)
- Other: 141 (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.
