A voter casts his ballot at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City as votes are cast in Utah’s 2024 primary election. Utah and at least eight other states have passed election laws this year that will make it harder for some voters to cast their ballots in November’s midterm elections. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
At least nine states have passed election laws this year that will make it harder for some voters to cast a ballot in November’s midterm elections.
Lawmakers in Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia passed laws restricting voting access between January and May of this year, according to a report analysis publicly available data through the Brennan Center and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Supporters of such laws say they protect election integrity and ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in elections.
“Securing the electoral process to improve oversight and prevent unlawful interference has been a top priority of my administration since my first days in office,” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an April statement opinion announces his signature on a comprehensive bill for up-to-date elections.
“This legislation strengthens the security, transparency and reliability of Florida’s election system.”
But the up-to-date laws have alarmed voting rights advocates, who say they will disenfranchise eligible voters and place additional burdens on older people. People with disabilities and those, such as married women, whose last names do not match their birth certificates due to a name change.
“In Mississippi, rural voters may have to drive hours back and forth to reach the office where they can obtain official paperwork,” Sonya Williams Barnes, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Mississippi, said in a March statement opinion Condemnation of a up-to-date state law that tightens citizen verification requirements for voters.
“For people living on a fixed income, cost is important.”
Even some Republicans have noted that non-citizen voting is extremely occasional. A year-long review of Utah’s voter rolls, completed in May, found just 27 confirmed non-citizens out of more than 2 million registered voters.
“This shows that there is not a widespread problem (with non-citizens voting) and that for the most part the states and our county officials are doing a very good job of ensuring that our voter rolls are clean and only eligible voters are registering,” said Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, said at a press conference in May announcing the results, the Utah News Dispatch reported.
The up-to-date laws only apply to state and local elections; Voters who do not provide proof of citizenship in accordance with state law can still vote in federal elections. Federal law does not require proof of citizenship to vote, although only U.S. citizens can legally cast a vote.
Many of the up-to-date laws focus on the identification documents required for eligibility to vote. Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota And Utah Proof of citizenship is now required before a person can register to vote in state and local elections. Some, like Florida, New Hampshire and Utah have restricted the types of identification documents accepted.
Florida comprehensive up-to-date electoral law was synchronized the Florida SAVE Act. It won’t take effect until next year, but is similar to the federal SAVE law supported by President Donald Trump. He is currently trying to get Congress to approve it by refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill.
Florida’s up-to-date law requires proof of US citizenship for anyone who registers to vote and requires the state to check registration applications against government databases. Similar to the proposed federal SAVE America Act, Florida’s version would require someone who has a different name on their citizenship document than the name on their current ID to provide proof of a legal name change. Experts believe this will particularly impact married women and people who have changed their last name.
Other states have given federal authorities the right to check voter rolls for people they believe are not citizens.
Kentucky’s Omnibus Right to votepassed in April, includes a Determination by giving federal authorities the right to check voter rolls for people they believe are not citizens. MississippiThe law requires the state to verify potential voters against a federal citizenship database.
And some up-to-date laws that don’t explicitly address election integrity could potentially impact who votes in the midterm elections.
A up-to-date one in Kansas Law The law says Kansans must apply the restroom of their biological sex at birth in government buildings. It also says Kanss residents must list their biological sex at birth on their driver’s licenses. This could cause an critical accepted type to become invalid ID that Kansas voters must provide proof of eligibility to cast a vote in person. This particularly affects transgender voters invalidates Documents such as birth certificates and driver’s licenses previously issued to them.
Many of the states that have passed up-to-date election laws, such as Kentucky And Utahare sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to provide the government with voter registration data.
Republican officials in those states have done so defended himself Sharing state voter rolls containing personal information such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers without a court order.
“Neither state nor federal law authorizes the Justice Department to collect private information about law-abiding American citizens,” said Henderson, the Republican lieutenant governor of Utah a post on X in February.
Many state Democratic leaders have also criticized the laws.
“We already have a system in place to verify people’s citizenship and it works,” South Dakota Democratic Party Chairman Shane Merrill said in one opinion after the state’s up-to-date proof of citizenship law was passed in March. “There have been no instances of non-citizens voting in our elections. Instead, this law creates a two-tier system in our state that makes some South Dakotans believe they are not good enough to vote.”
Some state election laws are now facing legal challenges. There are voting rights activists in Florida filed a lawsuit They are suing the state’s SAVE law in federal court and hope to block it before it takes effect in 2027. The plaintiffs claim the up-to-date law creates barriers to voting and will disenfranchise people who would otherwise be eligible to vote.
In New Hampshire, a federal judge dejected a Republican-backed 2024 law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote; The state has just appealed against the verdict Only a few months left until the state code in September.
Some states are still considering up-to-date voting restrictions. The North Carolina House of Representatives is expected to vote on it next week an electoral law which passed the committee without unanimous Republican support. The legislation would require voter identification by military and foreign voters, among other restrictions.
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org
This story was originally produced by State borderwhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes West Virginia Watch, and is a 501c(3) public charity supported by grants and a coalition of donors.
