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The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,195 bills so far this session, with 581 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,048 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral or mixed or unclear in their impact.
Last week, a federal court in Wisconsin ruled that voters with disabilities are entitled to assistance when returning mail ballots, while a Massachusetts court affirmed the legitimacy of recent election reforms, including no-excuse mail voting and in-person early voting.
Meanwhile, Republican groups sued Pennsylvania counties over ballot envelope curing processes.
Looking ahead: The Michigan Board of State Canvassers deadlocked during a vote on the certification of the Promote the Vote ballot measure, which seeks to make voting more accessible to Michigan voters. The state Supreme Court must decide whether the measure will be on the November ballot by Friday, Sept. 9.
Here are the details:
A federal court rules that Wisconsin voters with disabilities have a right to assistance when returning absentee ballots. A federal court struck down the Wisconsin Election Commission’s guidance requiring absentee ballots to be returned by the voter without assistance from a third party or agent. A U.S. District Court determined this guidance was in violation of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which entitles those with disabilities the right to have assistance when voting.
State and national GOP groups sue Pennsylvania counties over ballot envelope cure. Several national and state Republican groups filed suit against both acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Leigh Chapman and county election officials, seeking to prevent county officials from notifying voters about minor errors on ballot return envelopes and giving them an opportunity to correct (or “cure”) the issue. Pennsylvania statutory law is silent on cure procedures, and the plaintiffs argue that the varying procedures between counties can lead to unequal treatment of voters. The plaintiffs separately rely on a version of the “independent state legislature” theory by arguing that counties may not create cure procedures unless explicitly authorized by the legislature.
Massachusetts court affirms validity of election reforms. The Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk rejected a state constitutional challenge to early voting and mail voting legislation brought by the state Republican Party. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the state Constitution does not allow the Legislature to establish no-excuse mail voting or in-person early voting.
Michigan canvassing board deadlocks on ballot measure. The Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted 2-2 on the question of certification of the Promote the Vote ballot measure for the November ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would increase access to in-person early voting, require a minimum number of ballot drop boxes in every city or township, and establish guardrails for boards of canvassers throughout the election certification process. Due to the deadlock by the state board, the state Supreme Court must decide whether the measure will be on the November ballot by Friday.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.