This weekly update summarizing legislative activity affecting voting and elections is powered by the Voting Rights Lab. Sign up for VRL’s weekly newsletter here.
The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,448 bills so far this session, with 573 bills that tighten the rules governing voter access or election administration and 1,089 bills that expand the rules.
Last week, a Missouri bill that would create a stricter voter ID law and introduce in-person early voting advanced toward a floor vote. Meanwhile, New Hampshire’s strict voter ID bill passed the House and an appellate court reinstated Florida’s restrictive election law in time for 2022 elections.
Looking ahead: The Missouri bill may see a vote on the Senate floor this week, and the Texas House Elections Committee will hold its first hearing since the sweeping elections bill known as S.B. 1 was first tested in the state's March primary election.
Here are the details:
Florida restrictions on drop boxes, mail voting and voter registration were reinstated. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of the permanent injunction that blocked some provisions of S.B. 90, including restrictions on drop boxes, third-party voter registration, mail voting and line warming activities. Though the court has not yet issued a final ruling on the case, this stay means the voting restrictions will be in place for the 2022 elections while the appeal is pending. S.B. 90 was enacted in 2021; the state enacted another piece of restrictive legislation ( S.B. 524) this year that will also likely be enforced due to the 11th Circuit’s stay.
Missouri’s legislation creating in-person early voting, but also stricter voter ID, is headed to a Senate floor vote. H.B. 1878, a bill that would make the state’s voter ID law more strict but also create two weeks of in-person early voting, was perfected in the Senate last week. This bill would allow Missouri voters to cast a ballot in-person absentee ballots, for the first time. (Missouri is currently one of only eight states that do not offer in-person early voting.) The bill would also require photo ID for all in-person voting. Under existing law, voters are permitted to provide certain types of non-photo ID and still vote using a regular ballot. If the bill passes on the Senate floor, it will head back to the House for concurrence.
The Texas House Elections Committee will hold its first interim hearing this week. The committee will hear invited testimony on the implementation of poll watcher training required by S.B. 1, as well as recommendations to quickly report accurate election results. This hearing comes after Texas election officials faced challenges in conducting the state's first elections under the overhaul passed last year. Among the required changes, S.B. 1 restricts early voting and bans unsolicited mail-in voting applications from being provided to voters. Texas officials had less than six months to prepare for implementation of the new law in time for the March primary. Voters faced significant barriers to ballot access including high rates of mail-in ballot application rejection and temporary voter registration card shortages. Mail ballot rejection rates soared to nearly 13 percent, up from just over 1 percent during the 2020 election.
New Hampshire’s strict voter ID bill passed the House. S.B. 418, which would make state voter ID law more restrictive, passed the House with an amendment clarifying the deadline for voter ID materials. Current New Hampshire law allows voters without ID to cast a regular ballot if they complete an affidavit affirming their identity, under penalty of perjury. This bill would eliminate that alternative, and instead rescind their vote from the count if they are unable to provide an ID. Most states with voter ID laws offer an alternative method of voting to ensure the identity of voters without ID can still be verified. This new bill would put New Hampshire in the minority of states by doing away with that option. The amended version of the bill will return to the Senate for a vote.
The Oklahoma Legislature enacted a comprehensive private funding ban. Lawmakers enacted H.B. 3046, which prohibits the acceptance of anything of value for purposes of conducting elections. Any violation of the new rules could result in criminal charges for election administrators. Oklahoma is one of five states to pass new criminal penalties targeting election officials this year.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."