Voter suppression
Voter suppression is law, policy, or administrative practice that makes it harder for eligible voters to register, vote, or have their ballots counted — concentrated in ways that fall disproportionately on specific populations. Concrete forms include drastic reductions in polling places in particular neighborhoods, narrow registration windows, restrictive identification requirements introduced without compensating access, mass challenges to lawful registrations, and the elimination of voting methods (mail, early, Sunday voting) that specific communities have come to depend on. The publication does not treat ordinary, evenhanded administration of elections as suppression — the standard is differential burden on eligible voters, and that judgment turns on documented effects, not on the stated motives of those imposing the rules.
2026 Events (38)
North Carolina elections board voted along party lines to expand mail-ballot rejection grounds hours before ballots were mailed
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines on September 4, 2026, to approve new guidance expanding the grounds on which county officials may reject mail-in ballots, hours before the state began mailing 2026 general-election ballots. The guidance directs county officials to "spoil" ballots with an improperly sealed inner envelope, more than one ballot in an envelope, or a mismatched signature, and restricts who may deliver a ballot in person on a voter's behalf to immediate relatives or legal guardians.
Tarrant County commissioners voted 3-2 to cut 92 polling locations ahead of 2026 midterms
On September 1, 2026, Tarrant County's Republican commissioners -- County Judge Tim O'Hare and Commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez -- voted 3-2 along party lines to cut 92 Election Day polling locations in Fort Worth, Texas, reducing the county's sites from 316 in 2022 to 224. Democratic Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles Jr. voted against the plan after civil-rights groups said the cuts would fall hardest on Black and Hispanic precincts in Fort Worth and Arlington.
North Carolina elections board voted along party lines to reject most Sunday early-voting hours across 20 counties
The North Carolina State Board of Elections, whose Republican majority was installed under a 2024 law shifting appointment power from the governor to the state auditor, voted largely along party lines on August 20, 2026, to reject most proposed Sunday early-voting hours among roughly 20 counties whose local boards had deadlocked. Board member Matthew Longworth, a Republican member of the Anson County elections board presenting his county's plan, said "we are requiring people to work on the Lord's day" by having Sunday voting. The board granted a handful of exceptions, including a unanimous vote for Sunday hours in Lee County.
North Carolina House Republicans passed HB958, cutting early voting from 17 to 10 days and denying recourse to wrongly-purged voters
On August 4, 2026, the North Carolina House passed House Bill 958 in a 62-47 party-line vote, cutting early voting in primaries, runoffs, and special elections from 17 days to 10 and allowing challenges to early and mail ballots for up to three days after an election. The bill also denies voters removed from the rolls as deceased under a flawed federal-database match any way to prove the removal was a mistake. Protesters chanting in the House gallery were removed as the vote proceeded.
Alaska removed 3,048 residents from active voter list based on erroneous DMV data flagging citizens as possible noncitizens
On July 23, 2026, Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher disclosed to state lawmakers that the state had removed 3,048 people from the active voter roll, downgrading them to inactive status, based on a cross-check with Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles records that contained "old data." The flagging rate — far above the typical 200 names per cycle — reflected an acknowledged data error and affected citizens who had legally registered to vote.
Guilford County Board of Elections voted 4-1 to exclude NC A&T and UNC Greensboro campus early voting sites for 2026 midterms
On July 21, 2026, the Guilford County Board of Elections voted 4-1 to adopt a 2026 early voting plan that does not include polling sites at North Carolina A&T State University or UNC Greensboro, despite both campuses being used as early voting sites in the 2024 general election. The plan retains 13 of the 15 sites used in the 2022 midterms and adds two new sites—one in rural Stokesdale and one at Union Square in downtown Greensboro—for a total of 17, none on university campuses. Because the vote was not unanimous, the NC State Board of Elections will make the final decision.
North Carolina elections board voted along party lines to make it easier to throw out mail-in ballots
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines on July 20, 2026, to adopt a rule expanding the ability of county election officials to discard mail-in absentee ballots with procedural irregularities, such as an improperly sealed envelope or use of the wrong type of envelope. The rule requires county staff to contact voters but allows ballots to be discarded without appropriate response. The change, which must still be approved by the state's Rules Review Commission, is the board's second partisan voter-suppression rule in four days; on July 16, the board lowered the threshold for rejecting provisional ballots over photo ID.
North Carolina elections board lowered bar for rejecting provisional ballots over photo ID
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines on July 16, 2026, to adopt a rule making it easier to reject provisional ballots cast by voters who lack a photo ID. The new rule lets a simple majority of a county board's members disqualify such a ballot, replacing a prior requirement that all five members agree. Board Democrats warned the change helps legitimize unsubstantiated fraud claims, while the state elections director said it merely aligns the rule with existing law.
Wisconsin Elections Commission adopted guidance barring voters from voiding returned absentee ballots
On July 9, 2026, the Wisconsin Elections Commission adopted guidance for local clerks stating that voters cannot void a returned absentee ballot and request a new one — even if their chosen candidate has since dropped out of the race or weeks remain before Election Day. The guidance reversed the commission's prior legal position and was issued after ballots for the August 11 primary had already been mailed and multiple gubernatorial candidates had withdrawn. Three Dane County voters and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin separately sued to block the guidance within days of its publication.
Postmaster General Steiner announced USPS will refuse mail ballot delivery in states withholding voter data under Trump elections order
On June 24, 2026, U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner announced that the Postal Service would refuse to deliver mailed ballots in states that declined to submit voter lists and associated ballot barcodes to the federal government, as demanded by a proposed rule implementing President Trump's Executive Order 14399. The announcement came as all 47 Democratic senators wrote to USPS warning that such voter lists would be "ripe for abuse" and likely to contain inaccuracies that would prevent eligible voters from casting ballots. The coercive policy was announced on the same day a federal court blocked separate provisions of EO 14399 requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.
DHS conditioned over $1 billion in homeland-security grants on states adopting hand-marked ballots and SAVE voter-roll checks
On June 22, 2026, CNN reported that the Trump administration had attached new conditions to Department of Homeland Security grant programs — expected to exceed $1 billion this fiscal year — requiring states to phase out certain electronic voting systems in favor of hand-marked paper ballots and to run their full voter rolls through DHS's SAVE citizenship-verification database. States that refuse would forfeit 20% of their homeland-security funding, which ordinarily supports terrorism prevention, infrastructure protection, and disaster preparedness.
Supreme Court declined to review 8th Circuit ruling barring private enforcement of VRA Section 208 in seven states
On June 22, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a 2025 8th Circuit ruling holding that private parties lack standing to sue to enforce Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees voters with disabilities or limited literacy the right to choose their own poll assistant. The brief, unsigned cert denial left in place the only federal appeals court ruling to eliminate private enforcement of Section 208, creating a two-tiered VRA enforcement landscape for voters in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Private enforcement — historically the primary driver of VRA litigation — is now unavailable in those seven states, leaving compliance dependent on Justice Department action.
FBI expands Ohio Organizing Collaborative probe to affiliated national elections network
Federal agents have expanded the FBI's criminal investigation of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC), a pro-democracy voter registration nonprofit raided on June 11, 2026, to include an affiliated national elections advocacy network. The expansion suggests a broader targeting of voter registration efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms, with evidence suggesting pre-election surveillance more than a year prior.
FBI raids Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a voter-registration group
On June 11, 2026, FBI agents raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a nonprofit that runs statewide voter-registration programs, and fanned out across Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati to question current and former staff, serve subpoenas, and seize electronic devices. A board member estimated that more than 100 agents were involved and said investigators alleged voter fraud while presenting no evidence of wrongdoing. The raids came roughly five months before the 2026 midterm elections and drew condemnation from Ohio Democrats and democracy advocates as an attempt to intimidate voter-registration work.
Indiana election officials canceled voter registrations of 981 Hoosiers, including naturalized citizens, under HEA 1264
A June 2026 analysis filed in federal court found that Indiana election officials had canceled the voter registrations of 981 existing registered voters and rejected 644 prospective registrants — approximately 62% of the 2,602 people processed under House Enrolled Acts 1264 and 1680 since those laws took effect July 1, 2025. The laws require officials to cross-reference voter rolls against a Bureau of Motor Vehicles list of people who have ever held a temporary driver's license or ID, and to strip registration from any flagged voter who cannot provide citizenship documents within 30 days. The system contains a structural flaw: people who later naturalize are never removed from the BMV's temporary-credential flag list, meaning naturalized citizens with decades of U.S. citizenship remain permanently susceptible to wrongful cancellation.
Supreme Court lets Alabama use GOP-drawn map eliminating a majority-Black district
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alabama's emergency request to use its Republican-drawn congressional map for the November 2026 midterms, a map with a majority-Black population in only one of the state's seven districts. The unsigned emergency-docket order, decided 6-3 along ideological lines, overrode a three-judge federal panel that had found the map intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and displaced the court-drawn districts used in 2024. The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Sotomayor warning that the decision "disregards both democratic values and the rule of law."
Shasta County voters approved Measure B, eliminating most mail voting and requiring photo ID, in conflict with state law
On June 2, 2026, a majority of Shasta County, California voters approved Measure B, a county charter amendment that eliminates most vote-by-mail, requires photo identification to vote, and replaces machine tabulation with full hand-counting of ballots. Unofficial results showed it passing with about 56%, pending the official canvass and certification — the point at which the amendment legally takes effect as county law. Civil-rights groups including the ACLU of Northern California say the measure violates state law, which reserves voter-ID rules to the state under SB 1174, and that ending most mail voting will disenfranchise county voters; litigation is expected.
North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured a Jackson County board chair to block a campus early-voting site
On June 2, 2026, the morning the Jackson County, North Carolina, Board of Elections was to vote on an early-voting site at Western Carolina University, Dallas Woodhouse -- the county-board liaison in Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek's office -- texted board chair Bill Thompson at 9:48 a.m., "Don't let them have a vote." The board met later that morning and voted to keep the campus site, with a Republican member joining Democrats. Public records disclosed weeks later showed the text was part of a broader effort by Boliek's office to shape county early-voting plans to favor Republican turnout, using appointment authority a 2024 law had transferred from the Democratic governor to Boliek.
U.S. Postal Service proposes rule requiring states to submit mail-ballot voter lists, implementing Trump's elections executive order
On May 29, 2026, the U.S. Postal Service issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (published in the Federal Register June 2) that would require state election officials to submit the names and ballot barcodes of voters who request mail-in or absentee ballots to a new federal "Federal Ballot Mail Portal," and would direct USPS to deliver ballots only to voters on the resulting lists. The rulemaking implements President Trump's March 31 executive order (EO 14399) asserting federal control over mail voting — authority the Constitution's Elections Clause reserves to the states and to Congress, not the president. The proposal is not final and faces legal challenge; the act recorded here is the executive directing a federal agency to claim that authority, not the (contingent) disenfranchisement that would follow if it takes effect.
North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured Columbus County's board to cut early-voting sites
On May 27, 2026, Dallas Woodhouse -- the elections liaison in North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek's office -- texted Columbus County Board of Elections Chair Jillian McPherson-Edge that five early-voting sites was "overkill" and named three sites (Whiteville, Chadbourn, and Tabor City) to keep instead. On June 8, McPherson-Edge revised her own proposal from one site to three, matching Woodhouse's suggested list almost exactly. The county board later split along party lines and failed to reach the unanimous vote North Carolina law requires, sending the final site count to the State Board of Elections to decide.
Federal panel blocks Alabama's GOP congressional map as intentional racial discrimination
On May 26, 2026, a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking Alabama from using its new Republican-drawn congressional map in the November 2026 midterms, finding the lines "intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution." The map, enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision that the state read as loosening race-conscious districting requirements, would have eliminated one of Alabama's two majority-Black districts and positioned the GOP to gain a U.S. House seat. The same panel previously found in 2023 that Alabama's map was intentionally discriminatory against Black voters; Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court.
Trump administration ran 67M+ voter registrations through the DHS SAVE database for noncitizen and deceased-voter checks ahead of the midterms
Associated Press reporting on May 17, 2026 (carried by PBS NewsHour, the Philadelphia Inquirer, HuffPost, and ABC News) documented that the Trump administration has run at least 67 million voter registrations — predominantly from Republican-controlled states — through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's expanded SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database since August 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed about 60 million registrations checked in a roughly one-year window, with about 24,000 flagged as potential noncitizens; the DOJ Civil Rights Division separately said about 350,000 records were flagged as possibly deceased. The SAVE program was statutorily designed to prevent improper benefit payments to noncitizens — its use for voter- roll administration is an executive-driven expansion without a corresponding statutory mandate.
Court filing revealed DOJ officials sought Illinois voter data to purge noncitizens; emails showed staff directed to conceal purpose
On April 30, 2026, attorneys for the Illinois AFL-CIO and other intervening parties filed court documents in the federal NVRA lawsuit in Springfield, Illinois, including internal DOJ emails obtained through a public records lawsuit, showing that the Justice Department's demand for unredacted state voter rolls was aimed at identifying and purging suspected noncitizens. A June 2025 email from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Gates explicitly described cross-referencing state voter rolls against the DHS SAVE immigration database for that purpose, while a November 2025 email from Acting Voting Section Chief Eric Neff directed staff to respond to states' questions about data use only with "We will use the data in a manner consistent with Federal law" and say nothing more. DOJ has filed similar NVRA suits in approximately 30 states and Washington, D.C.; six have already been dismissed.
Louisiana governor suspends U.S. House primaries by executive order, voiding ~42,000 cast ballots
On April 30, 2026, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry issued Executive Order 26-038 suspending only the state's U.S. House primary elections in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down the state's congressional map. The Secretary of State certified the order; the U.S. House races remained printed on the May 16 primary ballot, but votes cast in those races were not counted, after roughly 42,000 absentee ballots had already been returned by early May. Other contests on the May 16 ballot, including the U.S. Senate primary, proceeded as scheduled.
Supreme Court 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutted Voting Rights Act minority-district protections, enabling states to eliminate minority seats
On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana's court-ordered second majority-Black congressional district was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, substantially reworked the 40-year-old Thornburg v. Gingles framework, holding that Section 2 claims succeed only when evidence supports a "strong inference" that a state intentionally drew districts to deny minority voters equal opportunity — replacing the prior effects-based standard with a heightened intent requirement. Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, said the ruling would "eviscerate" the Voting Rights Act and warned the consequences would be "far-reaching and grave."
North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured Cabarrus County's board to delay its early-voting vote for a GOP-leaning site
On April 27, 2026, the Cabarrus County, North Carolina, Board of Elections voted 4-1 to table its fall early-voting plan for 30 days, after Dallas Woodhouse -- the elections liaison in Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek's office -- pressed board chair Jay White to delay the vote and, in an April 23 text, urged the state Republican Party's general counsel "in the strongest possible terms" to do the same, so the office could pursue an additional early-voting site in Midland, a more Republican-leaning part of the county. The Cabarrus board ultimately kept its original four sites; none is in Midland.
DOJ concealed from courts and states its plan to vet voter rolls against DHS citizenship data, internal emails revealed
On April 21, 2026, a coalition of voting-rights groups led by Common Cause sued the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.; the filing, alongside roughly 1,200 pages of internal DOJ communications obtained through FOIA litigation, revealed the department had spent nearly a year collecting states' unredacted voter rolls to cross-check against the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE citizenship system while withholding that intent from courts and Democratic election officials. In a November 2025 email, DOJ Voting Section leader Eric Neff advised telling states only that the department would "use the data in a manner consistent with Federal law" and to "say nothing more," asserting that "no judge will have authority to limit us beyond a promise of Federal law compliance." The department had also sued 31 election chiefs to compel production of unredacted voter registration data.
Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop illegally purged voter registrations outside her statutory authority
On April 14, 2026, the Michigan Bureau of Elections notified Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop that she had sent voter-registration cancellation notices and altered voters' statuses in the state's Qualified Voter File without the legal authority to do so. Michigan law reserves that authority to municipal clerks and explicitly bars canceling a registration solely because a voter missed one or two elections — the basis state officials found behind Bishop's changes. Bishop, a Republican first elected in 2024 with ties to the "Stop the Steal" movement, took office in 2025.
New Hampshire Gov. Ayotte signed HB323, barring student IDs from voter registration and the polls
On April 3, 2026, New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 323, eliminating high school and college identification cards — including out-of-state student IDs — as acceptable proof of identity to register to vote or cast a ballot, effective June 2, 2026. The law limits qualifying identification to a driver's license from any state, a non-driver state ID card, a U.S. armed-services ID, or a U.S. passport or passport card. Republican sponsors said the change closed a security gap; Democrats and voting-rights advocates said it burdens young voters who lack ready access to the remaining forms of ID.
Florida Gov. DeSantis signed law requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote
On April 1, 2026, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation — Florida's version of the federal SAVE Act — requiring voters whose eligibility is challenged via motor-vehicle record cross-checks to provide a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization certificate as proof of citizenship. The law also bars credit cards, student IDs, and retirement-community IDs as voting identification and requires driver's licenses to reflect citizenship status starting July 2027. Civil rights organizations immediately filed a federal lawsuit arguing the law will disenfranchise eligible voters who lack access to required documents, including people born without birth certificates in the segregated South or whose documents were destroyed by hurricanes.
Mississippi Gov. Reeves signed the SHIELD Act requiring citizenship checks for new voters and annual ICE voter-roll audits
On April 1, 2026, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed the SHIELD Act, requiring local election officials to run additional citizenship checks on voter-registration applicants who lack or cannot provide a driver's-license number, effective July 1, 2026. The law also requires Mississippi's secretary of state to annually cross-check the voter rolls against a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement database to flag potential noncitizens for eligibility review. The Southern Poverty Law Center said the law could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who lack a passport or birth certificate, or whose surnames no longer match their birth certificates due to marriage.
Trump signs second federal-elections executive order asserting presidential control over voter eligibility and mail voting
On March 31, 2026, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14399, "Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," directing the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to compile federal "citizenship verification" lists and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to voters on those lists. Constitutional law experts, federal courts, and 24 state attorneys general have stated that the president has no authority under the Elections Clause (Art. I, Sec. 4) to set federal voting procedures — a position that already produced a 2025 injunction against substantial portions of Trump's first elections executive order.
DOJ admits in Rhode Island filing that voter-data analysis it denied in court has begun
One day after telling a federal judge at argument in United States v. Amore that no analysis had been conducted on the nonpublic state voter registration data in its possession, DOJ's Civil Rights Division filed a "Clarification of Record" admitting that preliminary internal analysis had in fact begun — specifically, identifying and quantifying "duplicate and deceased" registered voters in each state. The correction came a day after CBS News revealed DOJ was finalizing a deal to share voter-roll data with DHS, and after DOJ attorneys had assured judges in Connecticut and Minnesota that the data was not being analyzed or shared.
South Dakota Gov. Rhoden signed SB 175 requiring proof of citizenship for new voter registrations
On March 26, 2026, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden signed Senate Bill 175, requiring documentary proof of citizenship — a birth certificate, passport, driver's license, or similar document — from anyone registering to vote in the state for the first time, effective immediately under an emergency clause ahead of the June 2 primary. Voters who don't provide such documentation are still registered but receive a "federal-only" ballot excluding them from state and local races, and the law separately requires a physical South Dakota address, barring mail-forwarding services or P.O. boxes, for state and local registration. By May 2026, roughly 1,500 South Dakota voters had been registered as federal-only under the law.
ProPublica investigation revealed DHS election-security official pushed to ban voting machines, questioned Democratic wins
ProPublica reported on March 14, 2026, that David Harvilicz, the DHS assistant secretary overseeing the security of federal election infrastructure, has publicly called for banning voting machines and repeatedly questioned the validity of Democratic electoral victories. His deputy, Heather Honey, previously led the Election Integrity Network, a group that has challenged U.S. election legitimacy, and Harvilicz's team has been engaged in data-gathering efforts scouring voter rolls for noncitizens that have incorrectly flagged hundreds of citizens.
Mississippi Secretary of State Watson rolled out unverified Experian data, marking 50,000 voters inactive and blocking some from March primaries
In July 2025, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson's office distributed unverified consumer credit address data from Experian to all county election officials statewide, to be used as a new tool to identify voters who may have moved. Experian's TrueTrace product, which infers likely addresses from spending patterns, does not verify residency — a limitation Experian disclosed to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Mississippi Today's investigation found the unverified data was used to mark approximately 50,000 registered voters inactive, some of whom still resided at their registered addresses and were blocked from casting a counted ballot during the March 10, 2026 congressional primaries.
DOJ sues five more states for full voter rolls, bringing nationwide campaign to 29 states
On February 26, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced federal lawsuits against Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey for failing to produce their full statewide voter registration lists, bringing the Department's nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia. DOJ asserted authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel production, inspection, and analysis of complete voter rolls — data that can include names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial Social Security or driver's license numbers — to cross-check for "improper registrations." The filings came after federal courts had dismissed several earlier DOJ voter-roll suits.
U.S. House passes SAVE America Act (H.R. 22) requiring documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration
On February 11, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, H.R. 22 of the 119th Congress, on a near-party-line vote. The bill would require every American to produce documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — typically a birth certificate or passport — in order to register to vote or update voter registration information for federal elections. According to the Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU, more than 21 million eligible American voters do not currently have ready access to the required documents. The bill is now in the Senate.
2025 Events (6)
Alaska signed confidential DOJ agreement enabling federal flagging of individual voters for removal
Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher and U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon signed a "confidential memorandum of understanding" on December 19, 2025, alongside Alaska turning over a copy of its voter rolls to the Justice Department. The agreement lets DOJ's Civil Rights Division notify Alaska of individual "voter list maintenance issues," requiring the state to act on that notice within 45 days by moving flagged voters toward removal and reporting back to DOJ. State officials dispute that the agreement permits DOJ to directly purge voters or that Alaska requested the arrangement; at least 11 other states have signed materially identical agreements.
Ohio Gov. DeWine signed S.B. 293, eliminating four-day grace period for mailed absentee ballots
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed S.B. 293 on December 19, 2025, eliminating the state's four-day grace period that had allowed absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and be counted up to four days after the election. DeWine acknowledged signing reluctantly, citing a pending U.S. Supreme Court case from Mississippi he feared might require elimination of all grace periods if left in place. An estimated 7,800 absentee ballots in Ohio's 2024 election had arrived within that window and would have been discarded under the new law.
DOJ sued six states including Pennsylvania to force disclosure of sensitive voter data
On September 25, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued six states — California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania — demanding they turn over sensitive personal voter data including full names, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The DOJ invoked the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960, claiming the states were violating federal law by refusing to produce unredacted voter registration rolls. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, characterized the demand as a "concerning attempt" to consolidate federal control over state election administration, emphasizing that "in the United States of America, it's the states who run elections, not the federal government."
Ohio Gov. DeWine signed transportation-budget rider requiring BMV proof of citizenship to register to vote
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 54, the state's two-year transportation budget, on March 31, 2025, without vetoing a Senate-added provision requiring Bureau of Motor Vehicles applicants to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship before BMV staff may offer them the opportunity to register to vote. The requirement, which took effect that June, applies only to BMV registrations and adds a paperwork burden on top of the sworn citizenship attestation Ohio already requires of every registrant regardless of channel.
Trump signed EO 14248 requiring documentary proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form
On March 25, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14248, directing the Election Assistance Commission to add documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — including a passport or REAL ID — as a mandatory requirement on the national mail voter registration form. The order also directed DOGE and the Department of Homeland Security to cross-check all state voter rolls against federal immigration databases and instructed the Attorney General to enforce post-Election Day ballot prohibitions. Federal courts subsequently permanently enjoined the citizenship-proof mandate, finding that Trump lacked statutory authority to unilaterally alter the EAC's congressionally established voter registration form.
Kansas Legislature overrode Gov. Kelly's veto to enact SB4, ending the three-day mail-ballot grace period
On March 25, 2025, the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly's veto to enact Senate Bill 4, eliminating the state's three-day grace period for advance mail ballots. The law requires rejection of any mail ballot not received by county election officers by 7 p.m. on Election Day, replacing a rule that had counted ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within three days.