Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The state of voting: July 5, 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 2,182 bills so far this session, with 579 bills that tighten the rules governing voter access or election administration and 1,037 bills that expand the rules.

Last week, Missouri’s governor signed a bill that makes the state’s voter ID law stricter and limits mail voting access, but the same bill also creates in-person early voting in the state for the first time. And a new Massachusetts law expands early voting and mail voting, as well as facilitates voter registration.

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s budget bill includes a review of the state’s voter registration system by the Electronic Registration Information Center. The governor of Louisiana vetoed a bill that would have blocked the implementation of federal law and federal grants for election administration.

Looking ahead: Delaware’s governor may sign a bill that allows no-excuse mail voting, bringing the state in line with the majority of the country.

Here are the details:


Missouri governor signs voting bill that creates in-person early voting, while also tightening the state’s voter ID law. On Wednesday, Gov. Mike Parson signed H.B. 1878 into law, making substantial changes to Missouri election law that will go into effect for the November election, but not in time for next month’s primaries. Missouri voters will have two weeks of in-person early voting leading up to Election Day, and election officials will implement safeguards to enhance cybersecurity and the post-election audit process. However, the law also eliminates many forms of ID that were previously acceptable for voting purposes and creates barriers to third-party voter registration activities. Additionally, the law restricts absentee voting in a number of ways, including by prohibiting the use of drop boxes for absentee ballot return.

Massachusetts expands early in-person and mail voting. Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill that allows voters to vote early in-person or by mail for all elections. Under the new law, the secretary of state will send all registered voters a mail ballot application before each election. Under prior law, in-person early voting and no-excuse mail voting were only available for biennial November general elections. The bill also moves the voter registration deadline from the 20th day before Election Day to the 10th day prior.

North Carolina’s budget bill includes funding for the state to join ERIC, but may limit the state’s ability to use it. Currently, North Carolina is not a member of ERIC, a database used by 31 states and D.C. to maintain accurate voter lists. H.B. 103 would provide one-time funding for membership with ERIC for one year. The bill would also require the State Board of Elections to seek the legislature’s approval prior to making any changes in the policies or procedures related to elections in North Carolina. This requirement would limit the board’s ability to use ERIC, because ERIC may require certain system changes for use of the database.

Louisiana governor vetoes a bill that would interfere with federal election policy. Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed H.B. 359, a bill that would have prohibited election officials from accepting or dispersing federal funds for elections without approval from the joint legislative committee on the budget. The bill also would have prohibited election officials from implementing federal directives or guidance regarding elections unless they were required to do so by state law or received legislative direction to do so.

Delaware is poised to eliminate its excuse requirement for mail voting. The Delaware legislature sent Gov. John Carney a bill that would establish no-excuse absentee voting in the state. Delaware is among a minority of states where voters are required to have a special qualifying reason or excuse in order to vote by mail.

Read More

Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

US President Donald Trump hailed a "tremendous day for the Middle East" as he and regional leaders signed a declaration on Oct. 13, 2025, meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners. (TNS)

Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

President Trump took a rhetorical victory lap in front of the Israeli parliament Monday. Ignoring his patented departures from the teleprompter, which violated all sorts of valuable norms, it was a speech Trump deserved to give. The ending of the war — even if it’s just a ceasefire — and the release of Israel’s last living hostages is, by itself, a monumental diplomatic accomplishment, and Trump deserves to take a bow.

Much of Trump’s prepared text was forward-looking, calling for a new “golden age” for the Middle East to mirror the one allegedly unfolding here in America. I’m generally skeptical about “golden ages,” here or abroad, and especially leery about any talk about “everlasting peace” in a region that has known “peace” for only a handful of years since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less
Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

U.S. President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett - Pool / Getty Images)

Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

American political leaders have forgotten how to be gracious to their opponents when people on the other side do something for which they deserve credit. Our antagonisms have become so deep and bitter that we are reluctant to give an inch to our political adversaries.

This is not good for democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

As the COP 30 nears, Indigenous-led conservation offers the best hope to protect the Amazon rainforest and stabilize the global climate system.

Getty Images, photography by Ulrich Hollmann

The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane, and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It’s a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching.

The Amazon Rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to nearly twice the world’s yearly carbon emissions. With more than 2,500 tree species that account for roughly one-third of all tropical trees on earth, the Amazon stores the equivalent to 10–15 years of all global fossil fuel emissions. The "flying rivers" generated by the forest affect precipitation patterns in the United States, as well our food supply chains, and scientists are warning that in the face of accelerating climate change, deforestation, drought, and fire, the Amazon stands at a perilous tipping point.

Keep ReadingShow less