Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
USA Presidential voters on electoral college map

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Federalism at Its Best

​People arrive at a polling location on the first day of early voting in Texas

Early voting records should scare GOP

​Border patrol SUV

How Border Policies Are Reshaping South Texas Politics

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico

Are Independent Voters About to Flip Texas?

US Senate candidate Dan Osborn

7 Independent Campaigns to Watch in the Final Days of the Midterms

The 13 states limiting voting access under the radar

Voting rights advocates in Texas

All eyes have been on Texas, but there are several other states making changes to their voting laws, too.

Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images
Sara Swann
By Sara SwannJul 12, 2021
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

See More Writings by author

Texas is once again in the voting rights spotlight after GOP lawmakers this weekend revived a bill to tighten the state's election rules.

In May, Democratic lawmakers blocked the first round of voting restrictions by staging a dramatic walkout. But now in the special session, Republicans are getting a second chance to advance their legislative priorities.

And while much of the attention is on Texas, several voting restrictions have gained traction under the radar in 13 other states. RepresentUs, a prominent democracy reform advocacy group, released a report last week highlighting these lesser-known measures that impact more than 35 million voters overall.

So far this year 35 anti-voter bills have been enacted across 18 states, according to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab. In its report, RepresentUs identified 27 of them as "especially worrying and underpublicized cases."

Here are some of the recently enacted voting changes you may have missed:

Arkansas and Iowa have limited in-person early voting options. Voting by mail and access to ballot drop boxes have also been restricted in five states: Arkansa, Idaho, Iowa, Montana and Wyoming.

Additionally, a handful of states have adopted tougher rules for voter identification, including requiring an affidavit to cast a provisional ballot (Arkansas) and mandating photo ID at the polls (Montana and Wyoming).

Three states — Arizona, Kansas and Kentucky — have all reduced the power the secretary of state has over elections. For instance, a new law in Arizona gives the attorney general the authority to defend state election laws, rather than the secretary of state.

Seven states have rolled back or completely prohibited local and state election officials from using private money for election administration. This came in response to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded by Mark Zuckerberg, providing $350 million in grants for last year's elections. Banning such funds could make paying for elections difficult when help from the federal government is lacking.

Several states have also made changes to the voter registration process. Arizona and Iowa have ramped up their voter roll maintenance, which could inadvertently disqualify eligible voters. Iowa also cut its registration period by four days. Montana will no longer allow residents to register and vote on Election Day. And voters in Utah will now have less time to update their party affiliation before a primary election.

More voting changes are sure to come, though, as legislative sessions, regular and special, are still ongoing in 17 states and Washington, D.C.


Latest news

woman enters a building to vote
Elections

Political Accountability Begins Before Election Day

Nigeria flag, elections, ballot box, casting vote.
Elections

As Nigeria Prepares to Vote, Years of U.S. Democracy Support Face a New Test

Headshots of people
Elections

Taxpayer-Funded, Closed to Millions: The Growing Push to Reform Kentucky’s Primaries

Read More

A male senior stands in the shadow of a Social Security card with bite missing.

Social Security faces automatic cuts in 2032 and Medicare in 2033. New polling suggests that gives Democrats a powerful election issue. Here’s the case.

DNY59 / Getty Images

Will the Debt Crisis Engineered by Republicans Succeed in Cutting Social Security and Medicare?

Overview

The Republican Party’s long game to reduce administrative state entitlement spending centers on creating a debt crisis to provide an excuse for limiting such spending. It may soon pay off. That strategy involved a quarter-century of engineered tax cuts responsible for the stunning rise in sovereign U.S. debt, threatening an eventual economic crisis.

Social Security benefits are projected under current law to be automatically cut in 2032. And Medicare benefits are projected to be automatically cut in 2033. Congressional Republicans intend for those automatic cuts to occur, opposing new taxes to prevent cuts. And they are using the ballooning national debt as an excuse to also oppose new general revenue spending to prevent benefit cuts.

Keep ReadingShow less
​Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump followed by Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan and U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrive for a state dinner at the White House.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump followed by Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan and U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrive for a state dinner in the East Room of the White House on September 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

When Leaders Disagree, Ceremony Plays an Important Role

When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at the White House on 24 September, the U.S. welcomed him with an elaborate display of ceremony. The Army Herald Trumpets sounded a fanfare, the Chinese and American national anthems were played, and the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps performed. A military review was followed by a flyover involving a B-2 bomber and four F-22 fighter jets, according to the White House. It was an extraordinary production for two countries that still disagree on some of the most important issues in international politics.

Talks between President Donald Trump and Xi touched on trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan. The visit was marked by warm words and some signs of cooperation, but it did not erase the fundamental competition between the United States and China. So why was all this ceremony staged? It is tempting to dismiss political pomp as mere window dressing: an expensive historical relic surrounding the serious business taking place behind closed doors. As a music historian, however, I think this misunderstands what ceremony does. Ceremony can become particularly valuable when words alone are not enough.

Keep ReadingShow less
Americans Voting in an Election

Americans Voting in an Election

Getty Images

Voting Is Not Just a Privilege It Is Every Citizens’ Responsibility

Despite the consistent determinations that US elections are secure across the country and there is virtually no evidence of non-citizens voting, in reports released as recently as September 2026; President Trump has doubled down on his claims that voter fraud is a major problem in America and on October 20th, he announced a new $25 Million Fraud Whistleblower program to be administered by the Department of Justice.

This announcement achieves a variety of the president’s goals: (i) It intentionally perpetuates the misinformation, that voter fraud is a serious problem in the United States; (ii) it undermines the trust in the voting systems, as well as in the states administering the elections; (iii) it fosters distrust amongst neighbors, who are more likely to suspect people of color and report them for a reward. This has the concomitant benefit of (iv) intimidating people who are in fear of going to the polls and (v) It gives the illusion that the federal government is prepared to give away more free money (along with the Tariff rebate checks, the Trump Accounts, the DOGE dividend, the direct payments for healthcare and the $5,000 for supporting GOP midterm candidates.)

Keep ReadingShow less
Capitol building with American flag behind it

Political Polarization and Extremism

Getty Images

Both Parties Have Forgotten How to Lose: It’s Time for Guardrails

On November 3 Americans vote in the midterm elections, and the most important question may be whether the losers accept the result. A Pew survey this summer found that just 55 percent of Americans are confident the midterms will be run fairly and accurately, down from 64 percent in 2022. The partisan detail is more revealing. Since 2024, Republican confidence has risen and Democratic confidence has fallen from 77 percent to 58 percent. Trust in the referee now depends on who holds power.

Democracy rests on a kind of sportsmanship agreement. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it well: man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but his inclination to injustice makes it necessary. B. R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of India’s constitution, called democracy a method of bringing revolutionary change without bloodshed. Both understood that the system works only if the losing side agrees to try again next time instead of burning down the field. Americans in both parties are forgetting how to do that.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026