Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The state of voting: May 9, 2022

State of voting - election law changes

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.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

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.

Read More

Are President Trump’s Economic Promises Falling Short?

U.S. President Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter in the Oval Office at the White House on May 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker

Are President Trump’s Economic Promises Falling Short?

President Donald Trump was elected for a second term after a campaign in which voters were persuaded that he could skillfully manage the economy better than his Democratic opponent. On the campaign trail and since being elected for the second time, President Trump has promised that his policies would bolster economic growth, boost domestic manufacturing with more products “made in the USA,” reduce the price of groceries “on Day 1,” and make America “very rich” again.

These were bold promises, so how is President Trump doing, three and a half months into his term? The evidence so far is as mixed and uncertain as his roller coaster tariff policy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis

Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis.

Getty Images, MTStock Studio

AI Is Here. Our Laws Are Stuck in the Past.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises a future once confined to science fiction: personalized medicine accounting for your specific condition, accelerated scientific discovery addressing the most difficult challenges, and reimagined public education designed around AI tutors suited to each student's learning style. We see glimpses of this potential on a daily basis. Yet, as AI capabilities surge forward at exponential speed, the laws and regulations meant to guide them remain anchored in the twentieth century (if not the nineteenth or eighteenth!). This isn't just inefficient; it's dangerously reckless.

For too long, our approach to governing new technologies, including AI, has been one of cautious incrementalism—trying to fit revolutionary tools into outdated frameworks. We debate how century-old privacy torts apply to vast AI training datasets, how liability rules designed for factory machines might cover autonomous systems, or how copyright law conceived for human authors handles AI-generated creations. We tinker around the edges, applying digital patches to analog laws.

Keep ReadingShow less
Global Lessons, Local Tools: Democracy at Home and Abroad

Global Lessons, Local Tools: Democracy at Home and Abroad

Welcome to the latest edition of The Expand Democracy 5 from Rob Richie and Eveline Dowling. This week they delve into: (1) Deep Dive - Inviting 21st century political association; (2) Australian elections show how fairer voting matter; (3) International election assistance on the chopping block; (4) Checks and balances and the US presidency; and (5) The week’s timely links.

In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday.

Keep ReadingShow less