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In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Nebraska sent mail-in ballot applications to all eligible voters for the general election. The move followed a similar effort during the state’s record-smashing primary, when more than 75% of votes were cast by mail. Mailing applications worked well in the primary, said Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU […]

Reforms passed in Colorado in 2013 broadened access to the ballot box. They are now a model for other states looking to make it easier for residents to vote. The Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act of 2013 requires ballots to be mailed to every registered voter for most elections, created voting centers where any […]

Indigenous Utah residents who live on the Navajo Nation reservation in the southeastern part of the state have gained tools in recent years that will help them vote in the upcoming general election. And through legislation and court battles, access to ballot boxes across the state has also broadened. Voters can register on Election Day, […]

At the beginning of the pandemic, Oklahoma told its citizens they needed to seek out a notary if they wanted to vote by mail. After a successful lawsuit challenging that, and a counter-move by conservative lawmakers, they can now seek out a copy machine instead. If they don’t get their ballots notarized, Oklahomans must submit […]

Hawaii has long been plagued by an abysmal voter turnout rate. In 2018, less than 40% of the state’s voting-eligible population turned up for the general election — the lowest rate in the nation, according to a U.S. Elections Project analysis. But a glimmer of hope emerged this year: Despite the challenges posed by the […]

Tens of thousands of Minnesotans with felony convictions are prohibited from voting every year because they haven’t finished serving out the terms of their probation or parole. For years, some lawmakers and voting rights advocates have been trying to restore their right to vote through the legislature and courts. On most other fronts, Minnesota voters […]

The District of Columbia had a rough primary election. The Board of Elections encouraged people to vote by mail and then opened only 20 polling stations instead of the usual 143. The flood of requests for mail-in ballots overwhelmed election staff, who received more than 15 times the number of applications they normally do. Some […]

Rhetoric about fraud and voting by mail is a head scratcher in Oregon, which has had a vote-by-mail system since the 1990s. Cases of fraud have happened about as often as fraud in an in-person voting system — pretty much never. Registering to vote is also easy in the state, and it’s possible as late […]

Update: November 2, 3 p.m.: On Monday, Nov. 2, Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson denied the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party’s request to halt and add cameras to observe the review of mailed-in ballots in Clark County, Nevada. “There is no evidence of debasement or dilution of any citizen’s vote,” Wilson wrote […]

California has the most registered voters of any U.S. state: 20.9 million. But getting those voters to the polls on Election Day has been a challenge. California has a history of low voter turnout. Only 49.6% of eligible voters in the state cast a ballot in the 2018 midterm elections. That was a record high […]

Voting in Wisconsin was, for many years, easier than many other states. But in 2010, when Republicans swept into office on the Tea Party wave, lawmakers in the key swing state passed legislation that made it harder for people — especially people of color — to cast a ballot. Wisconsin’s changes — along with a […]

Multiple legal battles have played out this fall over how South Carolina will process absentee ballots, with mixed results, and with one case going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 1.1 million mail-in ballots had been cast in the state as of five days before the election, compared with 133,000 by […]

Illinois, dominated by Democrats in the legislature in recent years, has among the most open voting access laws in the country. It allows no-excuse mail-in voting and accepts late-arriving ballots for up to two weeks — so long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. In June, Gov. J.B. Pritzker also signed into law an emergency […]

As Floridians try to figure out how to safely vote this fall, one substantial group of would-be voters is largely blocked from the ballot box. And hurricanes have added another complication in a year overshadowed by a different disaster, the coronavirus. Here’s a look at some of the most significant updates on restrictions to voting […]

Arizona’s aggressive disenfranchisement of Latino and Native American voters put it on the Voting Rights Act’s list of states that were required to get “preclearance” from the federal government before making changes that could restrict access to voting.  Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that part of the law in 2013, Republicans have worked […]

Only 57% of eligible New York voters cast a ballot in the 2016 presidential election, 41st for voter turnout in the nation. Participation will likely improve this fall since the state has added early voting and made it easier to get an absentee ballot this year. But until New York drops onerous voter registration deadlines and removes […]

Outside of the South, deep blue and deeply segregated Connecticut has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. Long lines on Election Day disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters. It’s one of a handful of states that does not allow early voting. It doesn’t allow no-excuse absentee balloting. And it doesn’t count […]

Alabama is the state that brought the lawsuit in 2013 that gutted the Voting Rights Act and allowed other states — mostly southern ones — to immediately pass long-wished-for voter laws and local rules that effectively suppress the Black and Latino vote. Alabama officials continue to defend voter restrictions imposed during the past few years […]

Georgia was infamous in the last century for its Jim Crow-era poll taxes and other intimidation tactics used to suppress Black citizens’ right to vote. This century, the state is known as an epicenter for battles over restrictive policies that civil-rights activists denounce as modern-day voter suppression.  Eyes are on Georgia because of its reputation […]