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. 

By

Ballotpedia staff

In this week’s Ballot Bulletin, we cover 650 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.

Weekly highlights

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

Lawmakers in 44 states acted on 650 bills over the last week, 196 fewer than last week. 

  • Twenty-seven bills were enacted this week. Twenty-nine bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 15 bills were enacted in 2023, and no bills were enacted in 2022.
  • Legislators acted on 266 bills in 2024, 176 in 2023, and 140 bills in 2022 during the same week. 
  • One hundred forty-two of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, 439 are in states with Republican trifectas, and 69 are in states with a divided government.  
  • The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (188), campaign finance (160), and election dates and deadlines (86).
  • We are currently following 4,197 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 2,401 bills.

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 2025.

In the news

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

  • On April 2, the Georgia Senate advanced election bills that would modify the state’s early voting period, drop-box security, voter roll maintenance, and ballot design. HB397 would allow local election officials to end early voting on Saturdays, require video surveillance for absentee ballot drop boxes, and end the state’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). SB214 would require polling places to use hand-marked paper ballots, replacing the current electronic touchscreen system. Both bills now go to the House for approval. 
  • On March 31, the U.S. Department of Justice dropped a federal lawsuit challenging a 2021 Georgia law that requires photo ID for absentee voting, reduced the absentee ballot request period, and limited the number of ballot drop boxes. President Joe Biden’s (D) administration filed the lawsuit in 2021, alleging that the bill had a “discriminatory purpose…that departed from normal practice and procedure.”
  • On March 31, a U.S. district court ruled that county election officials in Pennsylvania cannot reject a mail-in ballot because the date on the ballot return envelope is missing or incorrect. U.S. District Judge Susan Baxter said the 2019 law requiring voters to write the date on mail-in ballot envelopes violated voters’ First Amendment rights.
  • On March 31, the Indiana House of Representatives passed SB0287, a bill that would end the state’s nonpartisan school board elections and allow candidates to run under political party labels. Four states, Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, provide for school board elections with party labels identifying the affiliation of candidates listed on the ballot.

Key movements

A look at what bills are moving and where. 

Twenty-seven bills were enacted in the past week. Twenty-nine bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 15 bills were enacted in 2023, and no bills were enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills and their full summaries, click here.

  • North Carolina (divided government)
  • North Dakota (Republican trifecta)
  • West Virginia (Republican trifecta)

Twenty-seven bills passed both chambers of state legislatures. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here.

  • North Dakota (Republican trifecta)
  • Nebraska (Republican trifecta)

Governors vetoed two bills in the past week. One bill was vetoed during this period in 2024, four bills were vetoed in 2023, and no bills were vetoed in 2022. To see all vetoed bills, click here.

  • South Dakota (Republican trifecta)

State legislatures overrode one gubernatorial veto this week. 

  • Kentucky (divided government)

The big picture

Zooming out to see the macro-level trends in election policy so far this year. 

Enacted bills

Twenty-seven 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 12 weeks of each year.

All bills

We are following 4,197 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. 

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 1,550 (36.9%)
    • Republican: 2,001 (47.7%) 
    • Divided: 646 (15.4%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 1,602 (38.2%)
    • Republican:  2,074 (49.4%)
    • Bipartisan: 299 (7.1%)
    • Other: 222 (5.3%)

We were following 2,401 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.

  • Trifecta status
    • Democratic: 1,251 (52.1%)
    • Republican: 796 (33.2%) 
    • Divided: 354 (14.7%) 
  • Partisan sponsorship
    • Democratic: 1079 (44.9%)
    • Republican: 902 (37.6%)
    • Bipartisan: 280 (11.7%)
    • Other: 140 (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.