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 262 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week's legislative actions.
Lawmakers in 32 states acted on 262 bills over the past week. Forty-three state legislatures are in regular or special sessions.
- Five bills were enacted this week. No bills were enacted during the same week in 2025, 2024, and 2023.
- Legislators acted on 679 bills in 2025 and 365 bills in 2024 during the same week.
- One hundred fifteen of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 95 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 52 are in states with divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were campaign finance (114), election types and content-specific procedures (87), and voter registration and list maintenance (73).
- The numbers in this newsletter include 3,094 bills. We are actively processing bills filed since Jan. 30 as legislative activity increases for 2026.
Note: In some states, legislators are able to file hundreds of bills per day. We are actively reviewing those bills to determine their relevance to election administration. As a result, during this period of heightened legislative activity, year-to-year comparisons may not yet account for all relevant bills introduced in 2026.
In the news
A glance at what's making headlines in the world of election law.
- On Feb. 11, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act on a 218-213 vote. The legislation, introduced by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R) and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R), would require voters in federal elections to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and would also mandate voter ID to cast a ballot. One Democrat joined all 217 Republicans in voting for the bill, while 213 Democrats voted against it. The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate for consideration.
- On Feb. 11, the Nebraska Supreme Court declined to immediately block Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) from providing unredacted voter information to the U.S. Department of Justice in response to a request from the agency. The DOJ has sought similar information from states across the country and filed lawsuits against 23 states in an effort to obtain the data.
- On Feb. 10, the Maine House of Representatives approved legislation on a 71-52 vote that would expand the state’s ranked-choice voting system to include elections for governor and the state Legislature. As a result of a 2017 Maine Supreme Court ruling, ranked-choice voting is currently only used for congressional races. Legislators approved a motion to consult the state Supreme Court about the bill’s legality before proceeding in the state Senate.
- On Feb. 6, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed HB 2022, which moves the state’s primary election date from the first Tuesday in August to the second-to-last Tuesday in July. The law applies to the state’s 2026 primary election, which will now take place on July 21. HB 2022 passed on a 56-0 vote in the state House and a 27-1 vote in the state Senate.
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 2025, 2024, and 2023. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- Arizona (Divided government)
- South Dakota (Republican trifecta)
- Virginia (Democratic trifecta)
Four bills passed both chambers of a state legislature. To see the full list of all bills awaiting
gubernatorial action, click here.
- Maine (Democratic trifecta)
- South Dakota (Republican trifecta)
- Tennessee (Republican trifecta)
- Utah (Republican trifecta)
No bills were vetoed in the past week. No bills have been vetoed so far this year. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2025, 2024, and 2023. 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
All bills
We are following 3,094 election-related bills, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,360 (44%)
- Republican: 1,087 (35.1%)
- Divided: 647 (20.9)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,424 (46%)
- Republican: 1,247 (40.3%)
- Bipartisan: 270 (8.7%)
- Other: 153 (4.9%)
We were following 2,838 bills at this point in 2024. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,163 (41%)
- Republican: 1,168 (41.2%)
- Divided: 507 (17.9%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,198 (42.2%)
- Republican: 1,283 (45.2%)
- Bipartisan: 219 (7.7%)
- Other: 138 (4.9%)
See the charts below for a comparison of total bills between 2024 and 2026 and a breakdown of all 2026 legislation by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
