Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Federal Legislation: Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill July 29 to restore and expand protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, their latest long-shot attempt to revive the landmark law just days before its 60th anniversary and at a time of renewed debate over the future administration of American elections. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) unveiled the measure, titled the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, with the backing of Democratic leaders. The bill stands little chance of passage in the Republican-led Congress, but it provides the clearest articulation of Democrats’ agenda on voting rights and election reform. The legislation would reestablish and expand the requirement that states and localities with a history of discrimination get federal approval before changing their voting laws. It would also require states to allow same-day voter registration, prevent voters from being purged from voter rolls if they miss elections and allow people who may have been disenfranchised at the ballot box to seek a legal remedy in the courts. Democrats first introduced the updated Voting Rights Act in 2021, when the party had unified control of Congress. The bill came in response to several years of states enacting restrictive voting laws following the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. The bill passed the House twice in that Congress but failed to pass the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama reintroduced a House version in March.
District of Columbia: During this week’s vote on the upcoming budget, several amendments focused on whether Initiative 83 would be fully or partially funded. The initiative was approved by voters last year and called for ranked choice voting and open primaries in D.C. Ahead of the first vote, the council agreed to fund half the measure, allowing for ranked choice voting but not open primaries. The system allows voters to rank more than one candidate on a ballot. At-large Council member Anita Bonds and Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker were among those who proposed amendments that opted for studying how to set up ranked choice voting before choosing to pay to implement it. Ward 2 Council member Brooke Pinto introduced one amendment that would have fully funded Initiative 83. “Just two weeks ago, we implemented the first half of Initiative 83 with a supermajority of us. This amendment just seeks to implement the other half of ranked choice voting, as was passed by 73% of D.C. voters, to have semi-open primaries, to allow independents to vote in our primary system,” Pinto said. However, the measure failed.
Michigan Ballot Measure: Republican activists and officials from across Michigan gathered Wednesday to launch a ballot initiative to ensure that only American citizens are voting in local, statewide and national elections. The Americans for Citizen Voting initiative was recently approved by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, and on Wednesday the effort kicked off its signature gathering campaign with the aim of getting the constitutional amendment on the 2026 general election ballot. The measure would require all voters to show a photo identification in order to cast a ballot. A big issue surrounding the debate on voter ID is the potential barrier such a requirement could place on those who don’t have ID readily available or those who might not be able to afford it. Organizers have anticipated that talking point, and the measure would provide free ID cards for those facing hardships. The initiative would also establish that the secretary of state must verify that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, and mandate that the Michigan Department of State regularly review and purge voter rolls of individuals whose citizenship status cannot be verified. Supporters and organizers will need more than 440,000 valid signatures to get the measure on the ballot.
North Carolina: A new bill moving forward in the state legislature would allow state election officials to be hired or fired for political reasons for the first time in modern history, allow foreigners to make some political donations, ban ranked-choice voting and explore using AI-based signature verification software to throw out people’s ballots in future elections. The wide-ranging bill contains a mixture of requests from conservative activists, Republican state lawmakers and the newly Republican-led State Board of Elections, which came under GOP control this spring after the legislature stripped Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s power to appoint a majority of election board members. Several of the changes in the new bill are aimed at allowing that new GOP majority on the board to flex its political muscles ahead of the 2026 elections, in part by removing the legal protections that State Elections Board staffers have long had against political motivations behind them being hired or fired, or otherwise receiving rewards or retribution. The bill would also exempt the elections board from some public records laws. And it would allow the board to hire private attorneys for lawsuits instead of using state government lawyers from the attorney general’s office.
Multnomah County, Oregon: The Multnomah County Commissioners have approved a change to the way elections are run in the county. The commissioners were presented July 24 with a proposal to move to a ranked-choice voting system for the midterm election in 2026. The director of elections in the county says this would simplify voting for Oregonians living in Multnomah County because it is already how Portland runs its city candidate elections. The commissioners voted unanimously to move the county to a ranked-choice system, so midterm ballots will look a little different in 2026.
Texas: The Senate voted 17-12 this week to preliminarily approve a bill that would allow the attorney general to independently prosecute election crimes without waiting to be invited by a local district attorney, a long-standing priority for the office’s GOP incumbent, Ken Paxton. A similar proposal stalled out just before the finish line during the regular session, with the House and Senate unable to agree on how quickly the attorney general should be allowed to take the case from local authorities. This time around, both chambers are starting from the same spot on that issue, directing the attorney general to immediately step in and take over election fraud cases. But a potential new line of disagreement has opened. In setting the agenda for the Legislature’s ongoing special session, Gov. Greg Abbott asked lawmakers to grant this authority to the attorney general with a constitutional amendment, after Texas’ highest criminal court ruled in 2021 that the state constitution bars the agency from unilaterally inserting itself into criminal cases. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote from both chambers — including 12 House Democrats — and final signoff from voters to take effect. In the House, Plano GOP Rep. Matt Shaheen took up that call, filing a joint resolution to accompany his bill. Sen. Bryan Hughes, the Mineola Republican carrying the Senate version of the bill, said during a hearing he does not believe a constitutional amendment is necessary.
Legal Updates
Arizona: Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian ruled that the public does not have the right to inspect the cast vote record, documentation detailing every vote cast in an election. The cast vote record is created by ballot counting machines and includes details about how people voted with other information, like “precinct, whether the ballot was adjudicated, and the completeness of the voter’s markings,” according to court records. The record does not include voter names or other personal identification information included on ballots. However, in some cases, information included in the cast vote record could be used to piece together information and determine a voter’s identity. In court documents, Maricopa County argued Arizona law prevents counties from disclosing the cast vote record. Julian agreed. In an order signed last week, Julian found that state election law exempts the cast vote record from Arizona’s Public Records Law, which allows the public to inspect most government records in the state. She cited a law that requires election officials to ensure the security measures used to secure “electronic data from and digital images of ballots…are at least as protective as those prescribed for paper ballots.” “CVRs, which reflect how each ballot was tabulated, are electronically derived from voters’ marked ballots. As such, they are explicitly covered by section 16-625 and cannot be disclosed to members of the public through a public records request,” Julian wrote. The judge found that the county should not have disclosed the record in the past. “The County acknowledges that it previously disclosed CVRs from the 2020 election, and that those prior CVRs are available through third-party repositories,” Julian wrote. “However, the fact that prior disclosures may have occurred in contravention of section 16-625 does not render the statute unenforceable or justify new violations.”
Arkansas: The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that private individuals and organizations cannot bring voting rights cases under a section of the law that allows others to assist voters who are blind, have disabilities or are unable to read. It’s the latest ruling from the 8th Circuit, saying only the government can bring lawsuits alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act. The findings upend decades of precedent and will likely be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case centered on whether an Arkansas law that limits how many voters can be assisted by one person conflicts with Section 208 of the landmark federal law. The opinion from the three-judge panel followed the reasoning of another 8th Circuit panel in a previous case from 2023. That opinion held that the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Conference could not bring cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “Like the provision at issue in Arkansas State Conference, we conclude the text and structure of (Section) 208 do not create a private right of action,” said the decision written by Judge L. Steven Grasz, a nominee of President Donald Trump. “Likewise, we conclude no private right of action is created by the Supremacy Clause.”
Two ballot question committees asked the court to block six Arkansas laws regulating direct democracy, one day after a federal judge granted them permission to intervene in an existing lawsuit. The original suit, brought by the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, challenges the constitutionality of state laws governing the petition and referendum process. The League also is gathering signatures to qualify its proposed ballot measure for the 2026 ballot. The League and Protect AR Rights, one of two ballot question committees intervening in the suit, are both pursuing ballot measures aimed at protecting Arkansans’ right to direct democracy. Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids, a ballot question committee pursuing an education-related ballot measure, filed a complaint, motion for preliminary injunction and brief in support of the motion Thursday. The coalitions requested a hearing on the motion, a preliminary injunction to block the laws and an order requiring the secretary of state to count and verify any otherwise legally valid signatures that don’t comply with the challenged laws. The laws the groups are asking a judge to block are: Act 218 of 2025, which requires signature gatherers (canvassers) to inform potential signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense. Act 240 of 2025, which requires canvassers to request a photo ID from potential signers. Act 274 of 2025, which requires potential signers to read a petition’s ballot title or have it read to them; failure to ensure this would result in a misdemeanor charge against the canvasser. Act 602 of 2025, which prohibits ballot titles from being written above an eighth-grade reading level. Act 236 of 2023, which requires petition signatures be gathered from 50 counties (up from 15 counties). Ark. Code Ann. § 7-9- 601(a)(2)(C), which requires a ballot initiative sponsor to provide the secretary of state the name and address of paid canvassers before they solicit any signatures; and the associated Ark. Code Ann. § 7-9-126(b)(4), which provides that, if the sponsor fails to provide this information, the signatures the paid canvasser collected won’t count. Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids argue in their 56-page complaint that the state laws infringe on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Michigan: Michigan Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel ordered mediation in the lawsuit the Michigan House filed against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over subpoenas to obtain training materials for election administrators, the release of which Benson fears could compromise election security. Benson has provided some of the material sought by the Republican-led Michigan House Oversight Committee but has expressed concerns that some of the information requested could end up in the wrong hands. The House filed its lawsuit against Benson in June, arguing that they have a right to review the material to ensure that election officials receive proper training that complies with Michigan election law. Patel ordered the parties in the case to appear for mediation with Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford, requiring Benson and House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland, to attend unless they have a valid excuse. The order followed a July 22 hearing during which Patel made the ruling from the bench. Two weeks before the mediation conference, the parties in the case must list the remaining materials subpoenaed that the Secretary of State’s office hasn’t delivered with a description of each.
Montana: Young plaintiffs are intervening in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of two voting laws passed this legislative session. The groups Forward Montana and Montana Public Interest Research Group are joining others in the lawsuit against Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen. The suit challenges two 2025 laws which cut Election Day voter registration by eight hours and limited the use of student identification for voting. Molly Danahy, litigation director for Upper Seven Law, is the attorney representing the Montana youth plaintiffs. “Young voters, especially new voters, are more likely to use or rely on Election Day registration,” Danahy explained. “Because they may be becoming eligible or deciding to vote later in the process than people who are more practiced or regular voters.” Montana’s Supreme Court last
North Dakota: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to prolong a temporary freeze on North Dakota’s legislative district map — hinting that the justices may be interested in hearing a tribal voting rights case against the state.The Supreme Court’s order, issued July 24, prevents an appellate court’s judgment in a landmark North Dakota redistricting lawsuit from taking effect until the higher court makes a final decision in the case. The suit, filed in 2022 by the Spirit Lake Nation, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and three tribal citizens, accuses a legislative district map adopted by North Dakota lawmakers in 2021 of unlawfully diluting the power of Native American voters. The judgment would do two things: make it so that private citizens in the 8th Circuit can’t sue under a law that bans racially discriminatory voting practices, and pave the way for North Dakota’s district lines to revert back to the 2021 map. Now that the Supreme Court has stepped in, voters in the seven 8th Circuit states will still be able to bring lawsuits under the statute, known as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, at least until it decides the North Dakota case. The order also likely means North Dakota’s district lines will remain the same for the 2026 election cycle. The current map — which puts the Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake reservations in the same district — was adopted in 2024 after the tribes convinced U.S. District Court Judge Peter Welte that the 2021 map was discriminatory. The plaintiffs asked the U.S. Supreme Court to freeze the current map in place as they prepare to appeal the 8th Circuit’s decision to the high court. July 24’s order solidifies a shorter stay on the judgment the Supreme Court issued last week.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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