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States that send a mail ballot to every voter really do increase turnout, scholars find
Lately, a rough consensus has emerged among people who study the impact of voting policies: Though they often spark fierce partisan fighting, most changes to voting laws do little to affect overall turnout, much less election results. But one fast-growing reform appears to stand out as an exception. When every registered voter gets sent a […]
Not just Ohio: Biased language is the hot new tactic to thwart ballot measures
Abortion-rights supporters filed a lawsuit Monday against what they call “deceptive” ballot language produced by Ohio officials for the state’s closely-watched upcoming referendum on the issue. But it isn’t just the Buckeye State that’s lately seeing fierce battles over the once-obscure topic of ballot language. In recent weeks, officials in Missouri — where another abortion-rights […]
Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds
In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies. But a new study by two political scientists is causing a stir by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand access […]
Federal health insurance website lags in voter registration assistance, Democrats charge
A group of U.S. Senate Democrats is pressing the Biden administration to make it easier for the millions of Americans who sign up each year for health insurance through a federal website to register to vote. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human […]
Red and blue state divide grows even wider in 2023’s top voting and election laws
Next year’s elections are still 16 months away. But for voters, perhaps the most important developments took place during the first half of this year — when states drafted and passed the legislation that will shape how those contests are run. “The rules that will govern the 2024 election are being written today,” said Megan […]
States with low election turnout did little in 2023 to expand voting access
This year’s state legislative sessions are almost all wrapped up. And on voting and elections policy, the headlines have largely focused on a new wave of restrictive voting laws passed in big Republican-led states like Florida, Texas and Ohio, as well as expansive laws approved in Democratic-led states like Michigan, Minnesota and New York. But […]
A top GOP lawyer wants to crack down on the college vote. States like Idaho already are.
A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states. But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising […]
Federal agencies lag in registering voters despite Biden executive order, advocates say
Within weeks of taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order — hailed by voter advocates as potentially transformative — that for the first time committed the U.S. government to registering new voters at federal agencies. But just over two years later, most of the 10 agencies examined in a recent report […]
Red-state elections officials balk at voter registration outreach
A day after taking office in January, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen withdrew his state from the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate data-sharing compact aimed at helping states keep clean voter rolls. Asked about the move a few days later by a conservative radio host, Allen, a Republican, at first talked about privacy […]