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The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,207 bills so far this session, with 583 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,057 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral, mixed or unclear in their impact.
Last week’s election developments included a key step in expanding the use of mail-in voting in the nation’s capital, as well as court decisions in Pennsylvania that ensure counties may continue to provide both drop boxes and an opportunity for voters to correct minor errors on their mail ballot envelopes.
Meanwhile, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law protecting the confidentiality of voters who are survivors of sexual abuse, and a unanimous Nevada Supreme Court prohibited Nye County from live-streaming a hand count and reading results out loud to the public prior to the close of polls on Election Day.
But a New York trial court ordered election officials to stop processing mail ballots before Election Day; the state has filed a notice of appeal.
Looking ahead: A new lawsuit seeks to require a Pennsylvania county to provide Spanish-language ballots.
Here are the details:
The District of Columbia Council passes legislation that would send mail ballots to all registered voters. The D.C. Council passed legislation on Tuesday that would add Washington to the growing list of jurisdictions that send mail ballots to all registered voters each election. Voters could return their ballot by mail in a postage prepaid envelope or put it in a drop box. The bill would also allow those who prefer to vote in person to cast a ballot at any vote center location in the city. Having passed the council unanimously, the bill must now receive mayoral and congressional approval to go into effect ahead of the District's 2024 election.
New York enacts a new law to protect voters who are sexual violence survivors, while a trial court blocks election officials from processing mail ballots before Election Day. Last Tuesday, Gov. Hochul signed A.B. 7748, enabling survivors of sexual violence to choose to keep their voter registration address confidential in the same ways that existing law enables domestic violence survivors to keep their records confidential.
Meanwhile, a New York trial court ruled that election officials must stop opening mail ballot envelopes and feeding ballots into a tabulator before Election Day. The court found that a new law designed to help avoid reporting delays violated the rights of the New York Republican and Conservative parties to challenge ballots and impermissibly limited judicial review of contested ballots. The state immediately filed a notice of appeal.
Pennsylvania counties may continue to cure mail ballots and offer drop boxes, while a new lawsuit seeks to require Spanish-language ballots in York County. The six-justice Pennsylvania Supreme Court split 3-3 on the issue of whether counties may continue to contact a voter when one makes a mistake, such as failing to sign their ballot certificate envelope, so voters may correct these minor errors and have their ballot counted. This split leaves intact the trial court order allowing counties to do.
Another Pennsylvania court held that Lehigh County could continue to offer 24-hour drop boxes as planned, and that plaintiffs were incorrect in asserting that drop boxes must be staffed and located inside of a building.
An organization representing Spanish-speaking voters sued the York County Board of Elections to enforce the Voting Rights Act and ensure their members can participate in the election. The county, which has a significant Puerto Rican population, currently offers ballots and other election materials only in English.
Nevada Supreme Court blocks Nye County’s planned hand count. A unanimous Nevada Supreme Court prohibited Nye County from live-streaming a hand count or from using any process that involves reading results out loud in front of public observers prior to the close of polls on Election Day. The county had intended to begin the count tomorrow. The court also prohibited the county from imposing different rules for curing mismatched ballot certificate signatures.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.