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The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,208 bills so far this session, with 583 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,058 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral, mixed or unclear in their impact.
In the final days before the conclusion of the midterm elections, courts in Arizona, New York and Pennsylvania weighed in on voting procedures that will impact how votes are counted and perhaps even whether some people cast their ballots.
There may even be some last minute action with yet another lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania.
Here are the details:
Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision disenfranchises voters who forget to date their ballots. Pennsylvania counties have disagreed on whether to count signed mail ballots returned on time by eligible voters when the voter forgets to date their signature, or mistakenly puts a different date (such as their birthdate) instead. Though the date has no bearing on whether the ballot is timely, nor whether the voter is eligible to vote, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided last Tuesday that these ballots cannot be counted. Since the decision, Berks County has notified over 700 voters that their ballots have been canceled for signature date reasons, and Allegheny County has released a list of over 1,000 voters who must act to avoid disenfranchisement.
On Friday, a lawsuit was filed in federal court challenging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision as a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from rejecting ballots for “immaterial” reasons.
New York reject challenges to absentee ballot laws. New York’s intermediate appellate court prevented vote counting chaos by upholding two 2021 laws relating to absentee ballots against a pair of last-minute lawsuits by New York’s Republican and Conservative parties. One lawsuit, filed in late September after absentee ballots had already been mailed to voters, resulted in a trial court ordering officials to stop the ongoing canvassing of ballots in late October. The other lawsuit resulted in a mid-September court order upholding the legitimacy of mail ballots relying on a special Covid-related illness excuse, which the Schoharie County Republican Committee then appealed in early October. The intermediate appellate court rejected these suits, stating their filing came too late and that ruling in plaintiffs’ favor would have been profoundly disruptive to the ongoing election.
Arizona court protects voters against intimidation, while Cochise County presses forward with plans to do a full hand count. On Tuesday, a judge issued a restraining order blocking armed civilians from intimidating, harassing and photographing voters returning ballots to drop boxes. Cochise County, facing the threat of litigation, had decided to pursue a limited and clearly legal hand count of ballots cast in the November election. After Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued an interpretation of the law, however, the county decided to press forward with a full hand count. The county was promptly sued.
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.