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 51 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.

Weekly highlights

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

Lawmakers in six states acted on 51 bills over the last week, 11 more than last week. Ten state legislatures are still in regular or special sessions. 

• Three bills were enacted this week. Five bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 10 were enacted in 2023, and two were enacted in 2022.
• Legislators acted on 52 bills in 2024 and 21 in 2023 during the same week. 
• Thirty-five of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, seven are in states with Republican trifectas, and nine are in states with divided governments.  
• The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (25), counting and certification (13), and campaign finance (10). 
• We are currently following 4,648 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 2,881 bills.

In the news

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

• On July 16, a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge heard arguments in a lawsuit over the Miami City Commission’s decision to move the city’s November elections to 2026. Mayoral candidate Emilio Gonzalez, the plaintiff in the case, argued that only voters could authorize a change in election dates, while Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves argued that state law allows the date change.
• On July 15, a Pennsylvania group filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging a state law prohibiting independent voters from voting in primary elections. Ballot PA Action chairman David Thornburgh said, “We’re speaking to the seven justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and we aim to convince them that excluding independent voters from primary elections is not just unfair in some vague, moral sense, but that it violates the Pennsylvania Constitution.”
• On July 14, the Michigan Supreme Court issued an order reviving a lawsuit alleging that Flint, Michigan, officials did not employ enough Republican poll watchers during the 2022 election. In March 2024, the Michigan Court of Appeals dismissed the case, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing. The state Supreme Court’s ruling remands the case back to the circuit court level.
• On July 11, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld the language of a ballot measure that would change the state’s absentee ballot and voter identification laws. If approved, the measure would require voters to present a photo ID for both in-person and absentee voting, require the secretary of state to provide free photo ID cards to voters without a driver’s license, prohibit family members from returning absentee ballots to a dropbox, require a bipartisan team of election officials to collect ballots from drop boxes, and eliminate the option to request an absentee ballot automatically, among other changes.

Key movements

A look at what bills are moving and where. 

Three bills were enacted in the past week. Five bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 10 were enacted in 2023, and two were enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.

• Alaska (divided government)
  • AK SR3

• California (Democratic trifecta)
  • CA SB558

• Missouri (Republican trifecta)
  • MO SB152

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

• California (Democratic trifecta)
  • CA AB1141

• New Hampshire (Republican trifecta)
  • NH HB67
  • NH HB154
  • NH SB287
  • NH SB221

No bills were vetoed in the past week. Sixty-five 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

Three 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 29 weeks of each year.

All bills

We are following 4,648 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. 

• Trifecta status
  • Democratic: 1,742 (37.5%)
  • Republican: 2,131 (45.8%) 
  • Divided: 775 (16.7%) 

• Partisan sponsorship
  • Democratic: 1,781 (38.3%)
  • Republican: 2,245 (48.3%)
  • Bipartisan: 399 (8.6%)
  • Other: 223 (4.8%)

We were following 2,881 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

• Trifecta status
  • Democratic: 1,517 (52.7%)
  • Republican: 937 (32.5%) 
  • Divided: 427 (14.8%) 

• Partisan sponsorship
  • Democratic: 1,333 (46.3%)
  • Republican: 1,053 (36.5%)
  • Bipartisan: 327 (11.4%)
  • Other: 168 (5.8%)

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.