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 20 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week’s legislative actions.
Lawmakers in four states acted on 20 bills over the last week, 14 fewer than last week. Eight state legislatures are still in regular or special sessions.
- Five bills were enacted this week. None were enacted during the same week in 2024, four were enacted in 2023, and one was enacted in 2022.
- Legislators acted on four bills in 2024 and 25 in 2023 during the same week.
- Nine of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, two are in states with Republican trifectas, and eight are in states with a divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were campaign finance (4), election types and contest-specific procedures (2), and redistricting (2).
- We are currently following 4,830 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 3,143 bills.
In the news
A glance at what’s making headlines in the world of election law.
- On Oct. 16, the New York Court of Appeals upheld a 2023 law moving some town and county-level elections from odd years to even years. Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and other county officials challenged the law, arguing that it conflicted with county charters and state constitution.
- On Oct. 15, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) announced that her office filed a lawsuit challenging a referendum that may appear on the November ballot. The referendum would uphold or repeal the state’s new congressional district map created by HB1, which the Missouri State Legislature passed and Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) signed last month.
- On Oct. 15, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a challenge to the congressional districts Louisiana adopted in 2024. A group of voters filed the lawsuit in January 2024, arguing that the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and over-represents Black voters.
- On Oct. 14, a federal judge rejected the state of Indiana’s motion to dismiss a challenge to the state’s voter ID laws. The groups Count Us IN and Women4Change Indiana filed the lawsuit in May, arguing that SB0010, a bill that excluded student IDs from the list of acceptable forms of identification, unfairly discriminates against Indiana students. The case will now proceed into the discovery phase.
Key movements
A look at what bills are moving and where.
Five bills were enacted in the past week. No bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, four were enacted in 2023, and one was enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- Massachusetts (Democratic trifecta)
No bills passed both chambers of a state legislature. To see the full list of all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.
No bills were vetoed in the past week. Seventy-one bills have been vetoed so far this year. 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
Five 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 42 weeks of each year.
All bills
We are following 4,830 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,780 (36.9%)
- Republican: 2,245 (46.5%)
- Divided: 805 (16.7%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,869 (38.7%)
- Republican: 2,336 (48.4%)
- Bipartisan: 402 (8.3%)
- Other: 223 (4.6%)
We were following 3,143 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,584 (50.4%)
- Republican: 1,058 (33.7%)
- Divided: 501 (15.9%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,446 (46%)
- Republican: 1,165 (37.1%)
- Bipartisan: 354 (11.3%)
- Other: 178 (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.
