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The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,197 bills so far this session, with 581 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,050 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral, mixed or unclear in their impact.
South Dakota will implement automatic voter registration and other improvements to its voter registration system under a new settlement agreement with several Indigenous nations. And a new decision from the Michigan Supreme Court ensures that a ballot measure to strengthen mail voting and early voting access will be on the ballot this November. In Arizona, a voter purge bill will not be enforced prior to this year’s November election due to a legal challenge. A new executive order in Pennsylvania expands voter registration opportunities.
Meanwhile, a ruling in Wisconsin increases the risk that mail ballots cast by registered voters will not be counted.
Here are the details:
South Dakota will implement automatic voter registration and other voter registration improvements under a settlement agreement with indigenous nations. A federal judge accepted a settlement agreement between Secretary of State Steve Barnett, the Rosebud Sioux and other nations last week. Among a number of other remedies to current election practices, the settlement requires that South Dakota implement automatic voter registration at the Department of Public Safety. The agreement ensures citizens will be registered to vote and their registration information will be updated during driver’s license transactions, unless they tell the state not to take those actions by checking a box on the form. Under the agreement, South Dakota will also fully implement the federal National Voter Registration Act by training staff, revising forms and procedures, and tracking compliance with federal rules and standards.
In Michigan, increased access to mail voting and in-person early voting will be on the ballot this November. In a 5-2 vote, Michigan’s highest court directed the state board of canvassers to certify the Promote the Vote ballot measure for the November election, asserting that the board had a “clear legal duty” to certify the petition. 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.
New ruling in Wisconsin increases risk of voter disenfranchisement this November. Last Wednesday, a Wisconsin judge ruled that clerks can no longer use verifiable information to complete missing address information on mail ballots. Unlike most states, mail ballots in Wisconsin are only counted if they include a witness signature. The witness must also include their address, and witnesses sometimes fill out the address field incompletely. Prior to this ruling, clerks could complete missing parts of a witness address when the clerk could verify the missing information. The new ruling prohibits clerks from completing the missing information going forward. Wisconsin’s Legislative Audit Bureau found that 7 percent of the ballots they sampled had witness address information missing.
A challenged Arizona voter purge bill will not be enforced prior to the November election. Parties in federal litigation challenging the newly enacted H.B. 2243 agreed to an order that prevents state officials from removing any voter from the voter rolls prior to this November’s election. The bill, passed by the Legislature in the waning days of the 2022 session, requires county recorders to cancel the registrations of voters for whom they have a “reason to believe” are ineligible. The bill also establishes a process for recorders to rely on information from non-election related databases to determine voter eligibility.
Pennsylvania governor expands voter registration opportunities. Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order last week that expanded the list of state agencies at which people can register to vote to include: the departments of State, Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources, Education, and Military and Veterans Affairs; the Bureau of Community Corrections at the Department of Corrections; and Department of Labor and Industry programs at PA CareerLink offices.
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.