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The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,201 bills so far this session, with 580 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,054 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral, mixed or unclear in their impact.
It was a busy week for those tracking the state’s election laws, with courts, executive officials and and others across the country weighing in.
A new lawsuit seeks to force Pennsylvania counties to reject mail ballots if they are undated or misdated. An Arkansas law that prohibits polling place translators from assisting more than six voters each will go into effect this election, despite the fact that a lower court found that it violates the federal Voting Rights Act. And Wyoming’s new interim secretary of state sent a nonbinding letter asking that counties cease providing mail ballot drop boxes this election.
Following the 2021 enactment of legislation enabling limitless challenges to voter registrations, Georgia counties have been faced with tens of thousands of frivolous challenges. But counties seem to be rejecting them.
And a federal judge ordered the Alabama secretary of state to turn over records related to voter purges. A new Michigan law prohibits polling places from being placed on property owned by a candidate.
Here are the details:
Republican Party sues to invalidate Pennsylvania mail ballots with undated or misdated signatures. Pennsylvania law requires voters to “date and sign” their ballot certificate. However, counties disagree about whether to count ballots when the voter leaves the date line blank. After multiple lawsuits, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that timely ballots from eligible voters with missing signature dates must be counted because the date is not “material,” and the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits rejecting ballots for immaterial reasons. On Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that decision without reversing it, preventing it from being binding on future cases. On Sunday, the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and Republican Party of Pennsylvania petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule that timely mail ballots from eligible voters must be rejected if their signature isn’t dated or is misdated (for example, if the voter inadvertently put their date of birth, instead of the date they signed the certificate).
Michigan enacts new siting rules for polling places. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed H.B. 6071, which allows a legislative body to consolidate up to six precincts in a single polling place when “convenient for voters.” Such consolidation, however, cannot happen for the election this November because another rule prevents changing polling places within 60 days of an election. The new law also ensures polling places cannot be placed on property owned by a candidate.
Alabama forced to produce records on voter purges. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ordered Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill to turn over records relating to voter purges to a plaintiff nonprofit organization, the Greater Birmingham Ministries.
Federal appeals court allows Arkansas restrictions on polling place translators to go into effect. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a ruling by a district court judge who found that Arkansas’ law prohibiting translators from assisting more than six voters each on Election Day violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The stay means the restrictive law can go into effect while the state’s appeal is pending.
Wyoming interim secretary of state requests that counties cease using ballot drop boxes, questioning legality. Secretary of State Karl Allred, who assumed the office on an interim basis after his predecessor was appointed to a judgeship, sent an introductory letter to the state’s 23 county clerks in which he expressed disagreement with his predecessor’s determination that drop boxes were permissible under the state code. In the letter, Allred asked that counties stop making them available to voters. This letter is not binding and does not block clerks from offering drop boxes for the November election if they wish to do so.
Georgia counties continue to reject thousands of challenges to voter registrations. S.B. 202, enacted in 2021, clarified that challenges to voter registrations can be limitless. Counties are now facing – and rejecting – tens of thousands of frivolous challenges. According to the League of Women Voters, out of over 25,000 challenges to voter registrations made by the group VoterGA, only 1,800 registrations have been canceled. On Oct. 4, Gwinnett County in suburban Atlanta rejected all of the pending challenges.
Columbus City Council passes ordinance to protect poll workers. The Columbus, Ohio, city council enacted an ordinance establishing a mandatory sentence of three days in jail for those convicted of harassment of election workers, members of their household or their immediate family. Secretary of State Frank LaRose criticized the ordinance as unnecessary, claiming that existing state law provides adequate protections for poll workers.
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.