State of Election Administration Legislation 2024 Mid-Year Report: Executive summary
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Absentee/mail-in voting • Early voting • Electoral systems • Voting rights for convicted felons • Private funding • Primary systems • Redistricting • Voter identification |
July 1, 2024
By Ballotpedia staff
Executive summary
Every year, state lawmakers consider thousands of bills that would change how Americans vote and how elections are administered. Ballotpedia’s State of Election Administration 2024 Mid-Year Report provides insights, analysis, and takeaways from the more than 3,735 election-related bills we tracked this year.
For the third year in a row, state legislators considered more election-related legislation in states with Democratic trifectas, but adopted more new election laws in states with Republican trifectas.
In Republican-led states, bill topic themes touched on issues such as ballot harvesting/ballot collection, voter registration drives, referring noncitizen voting ballot measures to voters, or preempting efforts to establish ranked-choice voting. In Democratic-led states, bill topic themes included cure provisions for absentee/mail-in voting, new definitions and penalties for voter suppression, and new laws related to election dis- and mis-information.
Several topics found support across the partisan spectrum with new laws in several states related to voter list maintenance, protections for officials and workers, presidential electors, and voting by eligible but incarcerated individuals or someone convicted of a felony.
Just 8.2% (305 bills) of election legislation had bipartisan sponsorship, but lawmakers enacted these bills at a higher rate (20%) than legislation with other sponsorship. Democratic-sponsored legislation was the least likely to be adopted (2.9%), while 10.8% of Republican-sponsored legislation became law. These rates are similar to those for the entire year in 2023 and 2022, when bipartisan legislation was significantly more likely to become law (23.1% in 2023, 17% in 2022) than Republican-sponsored (13%, 9.8%) and Democratic- sponsored legislation (9.1%, 7%).
This report describes activity in the most active states and provides an update and analysis of several topics of note, including ranked-choice voting, voter registration and list maintenance, absentee/mail-in ballot administration, and noncitizen voting.
The report covers all election-related legislative activity in the 46 states to convene a legislative session from Jan. 1 through June 6, 2024. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this report covers this period. This is the second annual edition of Ballotpedia’s Mid-Year Report.
With more than two-thirds of states’ regular legislative sessions concluded for the year, this report contains takeaways from the bulk of election-related legislative activity in 2024. Be on the lookout for more analysis and continued coverage of notable election-related legislative activity throughout the remainder of the year.
Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
State election laws are changing. Keeping track of the latest developments in all 50 states can seem like an impossible job.
Here's the solution: Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker.
Ballotpedia's Election Administration Tracker sets the industry standard for ease of use, flexibility, and raw power. But that's just the beginning of what it can do:
- Ballotpedia's election experts provide daily updates on bills and other relevant political developments.
- We translate complex bill text into easy-to-understand summaries written in everyday language.
- And because it's from Ballotpedia, our Tracker is guaranteed to be neutral, unbiased, and nonpartisan.
About the authors
Joe Greaney is a staff writer on Ballotpedia's Marquee Team.
Ballotpedia Editor in Chief Geoff Pallay reviewed the report and provided feedback, as did Managing Editor Cory Eucalitto and Marquee Team Lead Janie Valentine.
See also
- Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- About Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- Voting laws in the United States
- Election Policy
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