Electionline Weekly April-16-2026

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

Federal Legislation: Congresswoman Julie Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the House Administration Committee, recently announced the introduction of the Voter Outreach for Transparent Elections (VOTE) Act. The legislation establishes clear, minimum notification requirements to ensure voters are promptly informed of any polling place changes, so no one is disenfranchised due to confusion or lack of notice. The legislation requires that if a state changes a voter’s polling place for a federal election from the location they used in the previous federal election, the state must: Notify the voter of their new polling place at least 7 days before the election; and The election office must post a general notice of the change on the state or local election website, on social media, and on signs at the voter’s old polling place. The legislation also requires that if the polling place change happens less than 7 days before the election, and the voter goes to their old polling place, the state must make every reasonable effort to allow the voter to cast their ballot that day. The legislation comes on the heels of a disastrous primary in Dallas and Williamson counties in Texas after, at the request of the county GOP, went back to precinct-based polling places instead of vote centers.

House Democrats introduced a proposal that would give tax relief to election poll workers. Under the legislation, led by Reps. Joe Morelle and George Latimer, both New York Democrats, the stipend poll workers receive for working elections would no longer count as gross income for federal income tax purposes. “Cutting taxes for poll workers recognizes their vital role in safeguarding American elections,” Morelle said in a statement. “The Poll Worker Tax Cut Act will ease financial burdens while encouraging participation, strengthening election integrity, and ensuring these civil servants are properly valued for their effort, dedication, and patriotism.”

Alabama: Counties will now be required to conduct post-election audits after every general election under a new law Gov. Kay Ivey signed April 13, a move state leaders say is aimed at boosting voter confidence and adding transparency to the election process. Ivey signed House Bill 95, known as the Alabama Post-Election Audit Act, which establishes a statewide framework for post-election audits intended to ensure the accuracy and reliability of Alabama’s election processes. The law requires every county to conduct a post-election audit following each general election. Under the legislation, one countywide and one statewide race from one precinct in each county will be audited. The audit process will begin no earlier than 31 days after the election or once the period for filing an election contest has expired, and it must be completed within 30 days. Probate judges will oversee the audits and report their findings to the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office, where results will be made publicly available online. Each audit report must include any identified discrepancies, their likely causes and recommendations for improvement. The secretary of state will compile findings from across Alabama and report them to the Legislature and the governor. The law also includes public transparency requirements, including public notice of audit times and locations, and it allows poll watchers and members of the media to observe the process.

Colorado: A major elections bill moving through the Colorado statehouse seeks to curb the influence of potential federal election interference and would update the state’s definition of disaster to include an election emergency. House Bill 1113 requires clerks to mail ballots earlier, allows ballot drop boxes to accept ballots earlier and voting centers to be open longer. It would also give Colorado’s governor more power to respond to a potential threat or inability to carry out an election. The governor would be able to convene an election emergency advisory group to assist with responding to an election disaster. The proposal also mandates that Colorado adopt geospatial (GIS) data, information tied to specific geographic locations, into the statewide voter registration system. County clerks testified that the bill has a lot of good points, especially highlighting that GIS information would lead to more accurate voter registration rolls. The bill recently passed the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs committee without Republican support. It passed 3-2 and now heads to the Senate Appropriations committee.

Delaware: A bill to amend the Delaware Constitution to allow no-excuse absentee voting completes its first leg in the General Assembly. The State Senate passed a House amended version of the measure April 14 in a near party-line vote, 16-5. One GOP senator, Eric Buckson (R-Dover), joined Democrats in voting for the bill. This constitutional amendment builds on a 2022 effort to expand absentee voting by statute. But Delaware courts ruled the state’s constitution could not be overruled by a statute. Since this bill would amend the state constitution, it must pass again in both chambers during another session of the General Assembly to take effect.The earliest that can happen is January. “Your vote is just as valid as it is on Election Day. And there are residents that you know for travel reasons, vacation reasons, maybe there’s a loved one that is sick, they’re unable to be present on Election Day to vote.,” said State Senator Darius Brown (D-Wilmington). “And so, through absentee voting, it allows them, without an excuse or falsifying their reason, to be able to vote and have their voice heard in their vote counted.”

Iowa; The legislature has sent the governor a bill that forbids a school from being used as an early voting location if there’s a bond issue for any school district on the ballot. The bill prevents schools from being used if voters are deciding property tax levies for school renovation or construction plans, including sports facilities as well as other levies that support the operation of public schools. “This has happened on multiple occasions where satellite absentee voting locations have been set up on school property for a ballot measure around events for the purpose of trying to influence the outcome of that election,” Representative Austin Harris, a Republican from Moulton, said. Democrats opposed the policy. Senator Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport, said it’s “faulty reasoning” to believe a voter who opposes a bond issue wouldn’t vote early at a school.”In many cases, especially in smaller communities, the school is one of the safest sites in their community,” Winckler said. “It also is handicapped accessible.”

Kansas: Lawmakers overturned a handful of vetoes by Gov. Laura Kelly, including on bills that she said would “suppress civic engagement and make it harder for Kansans to vote.” Among the legislation now to be enacted is the SAVE Kansas act, which directs the Kansas secretary of state to regularly check voter rolls, using a new, controversial tool offered by the federal government called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system. Kansas’s law also puts new security requirements on the websites used to collect voter registrations. They must use the .gov domain and meet nine other security requirements, including that data is transmitted using “encryption in transit,” that encryption standards are aligned with those set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and that audit logs are maintained. The law directs the head of the state’s motor vehicle’s division each quarter to provide the secretary of state with “a list of all permanent and temporary drivers’ licenses issued to noncitizens.” The list must contain “names, all available addresses, phone numbers,” Social Security numbers, “dates of birth, alien registration numbers, temporary drivers’ license numbers” and license expiration dates.

Lawmakers also overturned Kelly’s veto on House Bill 2569, legislation that opens the door for the courts to reverse the state’s no-excuse mail-in voting option. Kelly wrote that mail-in voting “preserves this fundamental right of any Kansan to participate in the democratic process. It eliminates barriers imposed by proximity to a post office, work schedules, age, disability or illness, lack of transportation.” She worried the law would “disenfranchise a significant number of Kansans who are not able to vote in person. That appears to be the purpose of this bill as there is scant evidence of illegal voting necessitating these restrictions.”

The legislature overturned other elections-related vetoes, including on House Bill 2587, which will require citizenship status to be displayed on driver’s licenses and will require that anyone who displays a noncitizen driver’s license at a polling place be provided a provisional ballot. Kelly justified her veto by noting that the state already has “one of the strongest driver’s license verification systems in the country,” which includes proving citizenship, and so therefore the bill “does not solve an existing problem.”

Louisiana: A bill that would check voter registration against a national database has passed the Louisiana House of Representatives and now heads to the state Senate. HB 691, authored by State Rep. Beau Beaullieu (R-New Iberia), would require Louisiana’s Secretary of State to submit details on every registered voter to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) annually for investigation into voter eligibility. The state previously reported that since 1980, 400 non-citizens have registered to vote in Louisiana – 79 of those voted in at least one election. The proposal says data shall be submitted to the SAVE program 180 days before a regularly scheduled federal general election. Although the bill passed the House, it received opposition from State Rep. Wilford Carter (D-Lake Charles). He was concerned that a lot of errors would come from having a federal database check voter information. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Senate and Governmental Affairs.

Maryland: With just minutes to spare before the General Assembly adjourned Sin Die this week, the Maryland Senate approved the Maryland Voting Rights Act. The emergency legislation lets citizens or the attorney general sue county and local governments over their voting plans. Senate Bill 255, the Voting Rights Act of 2026, will allow the attorney general or a resident to file a lawsuit based on “polarized voting.” It also pushes to ensure county and municipal elections don’t dilute voters based on their race, color, sexual orientation, among other characteristics. Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) said in a statement Tuesday the legislation allows his office to protect voters. “At a time when federal voting rights protections are being dismantled, Maryland acted to protect its own,” he said. A major part of the bill makes it an emergency measure, which means the bill becomes law effectively immediately after being signed into law by the governor.

Michigan: The Republican-controlled House voted April 14 to approve legislation that would require individuals registering to vote to first show proof of citizenship. The bill, which was approved mostly along party lines by a vote of 58-46, was supported by several Republican speakers. They said it would reduce instances of voter fraud and regain trust in the state’s elections. House Bill 4765, sponsored by Rep. Jason Woolford, R-Howell, would amend Michigan election law to require the secretary of state verify the citizenship status of an individual when they apply to register to vote. Verification would be possible through databases maintained by the Michigan Department of State and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to the bill as substituted. But to expedite the verification process, applicants could also provide their own “satisfactory evidence,” including: Driver licenses or ID cards with citizenship verification, like the enhanced ID; A birth certificate verifying U.S. citizenship, which could be accompanied by a marriage license or other documentation that shows a name change; A U.S. passport; Naturalization documents or the number of a certificate of naturalization; A certificate of citizenship; An American Indian card issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with the classification “KIC”; A Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, Indian census number, tribal treaty card number or tribal enrollment number; or A certification of report of birth or consular report of birth abroad. Applicants would not be registered electors until their citizenship is verified, and those whose citizenship status couldn’t be verified would have to be designated in the qualified voter file as a federal-only voter. They would be ineligible to vote in state or local elections.

Oklahoma: A proposal to enshrine Oklahoma’s voter identification law into the Oklahoma Constitution will appear on the Aug. 25 primary runoff election ballot. The state House overwhelmingly approved Senate Joint Resolution 47 to put the issue before voters during a traditionally partisan, low turnout election. State law already requires voters to present identification at their polling location, but SJR 47 would add this requirement to the Constitution and would allow the Legislature to enact laws to specify the requirements for proof of identity. Currently, Oklahomans can present proof of identity using a photo ID, their county election board voter identification card or a signed affidavit with a provisional ballot. The House approved the measure 80-13 and passed the special election provision 78-15.

Pennsylvania: County election officials would get up to a week to prepare mail-in ballots for counting under legislation now headed to the state House for consideration. Under Act 77, signed into law in 2019, county election workers have been allowed to begin pre-canvassing mail-in ballots only after polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day. Election officials and county commissioners have consistently said more time is needed to ensure election results can be reported in a timely manner. House Bill 37, introduced by Rep. Scott Conklin (D-Centre), would allow county boards of elections to meet up to seven days before an election to pre-canvass ballots. The proposal passed the House State Government Committee with a 15-11 vote Tuesday. Rep. Catherine Wallen of Adams County was the only Republican voting in support. It now goes to the full chamber for consideration. Under an amendment offered by committee Chairperson Carol Hill-Evans (D-York), the bill also would require officials to begin pre-canvassing mail-in ballots no later than 7 a.m. on Election Day and continue without interruption until each ballot received before the 8 p.m. deadline has been processed. The committee passed the amendment 24-2, with Republican Reps. Scott Barger of Blair County and Wendy Fink of York County opposed.

West Virginia: Governor Patrick Morrisey (R) signed a bill into law that adds a new residency requirement for West Virginia voters. The new law, known as Senate Bill 59, adds a definition for a “legal resident” who is eligible to vote to the voting code. It also adds a clause that requires voters in the state to have “an intent to remain in the state, county, or municipality indefinitely.” The law lists eight specific criteria that will determine whether someone is a legal resident and is eligible to vote. The criteria are as follows: (A) The physical character of the person’s residence; (B) The amount of time spent by the person in the state, county, or municipality; (C) The person’s place of employment; (D) The state issuing the person’s most recent driver’s license or identification card; (E) Registering a vehicle or other property in the state or county; (F) Where the person receives state or federal benefits; (G) The address listed on a person’s government-issued documents; (H) The person’s tax filings; and (I) Other evidence tending to demonstrate or disprove that a person seeks to remain at his or her residence indefinitely. The law contends that the Secretary of State or county clerk has the right to challenge the residency of anyone offering to register to vote. However, multiple exceptions are outlined to the above criteria, including one that allows college students to register to vote in the city where they live to attend school, even if they don’t intend to stay beyond graduation.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill bringing Wisconsin in line with a federal law seeking to prevent the kind of post-election chaos that President Donald Trump and his allies sowed after the 2020 election. The bill Evers signed updates Wisconsin’s deadlines for certifying presidential election results and casting electoral votes to match federal timelines set by Congress in 2022, after Trump claimed to have won the 2020 election and hundreds of individuals stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The measure passed the Senate last session but stalled in the Assembly. With its passage, Wisconsin is among more than 20 states to update their laws to align with the Electoral Count Reform Act.

Evers also vetoed a Republican-authored bill that would have required the state election commission to hear administrative complaints against itself alleging violations of the federal Help America Vote Act, in line with a U.S. Justice Department demand for the state. That vetoed bill also would have required the state’s Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct audits for potential noncitizen voters.

Legal Updates

Arkansas: Circuit Judge Timothy Davis Fox dismissed the legal challenge brought by Brian Norris in the Arkansas Secretary of State race, ending—for now—a court fight that was supposed to examine election procedures in Saline County. Fox didn’t address the subject at hand, instead he ruled that the case wasn’t filed correctly under Arkansas law. Norris had asked the court to pause certification and preserve election materials while concerns about ballot handling and chain of custody were reviewed. But the court said the filing didn’t meet a basic statutory requirement—specifically, it lacked the required affidavit from the contestant. What was submitted instead was a verification. And under the law, those are not interchangeable. So the court didn’t weigh the allegations, it didn’t review the conduct, and it also didn’t get into the mechanics of how ballots were handled in Saline County. The case was dismissed without prejudice. The order also went further, laying out additional legal limits. The judge noted that Arkansas law restricts who can bring election contests to candidates themselves, not campaign committees. He also pointed to strict deadlines baked into the statute, suggesting the emergency relief Norris requested didn’t align with the legal framework governing these disputes. Indiana: U.S. District Court Judge Richard Young issued an order April 14 blocking an Indiana law that banned the use of college-issued student identification cards for voting. Young granted the preliminary injunction sought by groups that filed a lawsuit challenging the student ID ban soon after it was approved by the Legislature last year. Young ruled that the challengers would likely succeed in their arguments that the law “imposes unconstitutional burdens on students and young voters in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Students had been allowed to use identification cards issued by public universities at polling places to meet Indiana’s voter ID law under requirements that they included the voter’s name, photo and a valid expiration date. Republican lawmakers, however, pushed through legislation in 2025 removing the college-issued IDs from the list of acceptable identification, arguing that they weren’t subject to the same “rigor” as driver’s licenses. Young found that it was inconsistent for the state to ban the college-issued IDs for voting while still permitting the use of identification issued by the Veterans Administration, military and Native American tribes, “many of which are less uniform than student IDs.” “By eliminating student IDs as an acceptable form of identification, Defendants selectively excluded a form of identification that otherwise complies with the neutral criteria established by Indiana’s voter ID law and that has been accepted as a form of voter identification for nearly two decades,” Young wrote.

Louisiana: The state of Louisiana sued the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, challenging its refusal to allow the state to add a proof of citizenship requirement to federal voter registration forms. After Louisiana passed a law in 2024 requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, the Louisiana Department of State requested the commission approve state-specific language for the federal voter registration form requiring applicants in Louisiana to provide either a unique immigration number or the applicant’s place of birth, sex and mother’s maiden name (if known) in order to enable election officials to search databases to verify the applicant’s citizenship. The commission split 2-2 on whether to allow Louisiana to make this addition, depriving the state of the majority needed to approve the request. The commission’s two Democratic members wrote in a statement explaining their votes against the proposal that Louisiana had not shown the added requirement is necessary to determine voter eligibility. In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, the Louisiana attorney general and secretary of state argue the commission exceeded its legal authority in denying Louisiana’s request. “The EAC does not have the authority or right under the NVRA to decline the secretary of state’s request to modify the Louisiana-specific instructions on the federal form that reflect the voter qualification and registration laws of the state of Louisiana or that enable Louisiana election officials to assess the eligibility of applicants and administer voter registration and other parts of the election process,” they argue. “To the extent the EAC interprets its authority under the NVRA as including the right to deny a state from requesting information it not only determined was necessary to assess the eligibility of applicants and administer voter registration but also to comply with state law which requires proof of citizenship, such an interpretation exceeds the scope of Congress’ and the EAC’s authority.”

Massachusetts: U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin tossed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit that sought access to sensitive personal information on state voters. In a 13-page ruling, Sorokin ruled that the Republican White House’s effort, one of two dozen nationwide, “fails for the simple reason that the Attorney General’s demand did not comply with Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the statute on which it purports to rely.” That section of the law deals with the retention of voter records and sets out the criteria for inspecting them. The U.S. Justice Department sued Secretary of State William F. Galvin last December after the state’s chief election officer refused to comply with the agency’s demand that he turn over the state’s “full electronic voter file.” In court documents, Galvin argued that the feds couldn’t compel him to turn over the records by using that section of the voting law. Sorokin effectively agreed, ruling that “the Attorney General offered no basis—none—and the demand was therefore facially inadequate.” In a joint statement, Galvin and state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell praised the ruling. “I am very pleased that the court has recognized that the Department of Justice’s demand for unfettered access to personal voter data was completely without any stated basis or purpose,” Galvin said. Campbell called the ruling a “decisive win for Massachusetts voters and the rule of law.”

New Jersey: Voter fraud charges against Paterson Councilman and mayoral candidate Alex Mendez were dropped after six years. Mendez and fellow Councilman Michael Jackson were charged with election fraud, mail-in ballot fraud, unauthorized possession of ballots, tampering with public records, and falsifying records. They had allegedly engaged in mail-in ballot fraud during Paterson’s 2020 municipal election, when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service found hundreds of mail-in ballots bound together in a series of mail deposit boxes. Mendez faced other counts of false registration of transfer and attempted false registration or transfer. Mendez’s trial had been scheduled for May 19. The case against his wife, Yohanny, was also dismissed. The trial had been set for April, but it was delayed after prosecutors signaled their intent to add four witnesses to the trial. Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed dismissed the case on speedy trial grounds and the state prosecutors’ failure to disclose an immunity agreement that had been reached with a key witness, according to the Paterson Press.

Wisconsin: According to the Wisconsin Examiner, a legal brief filed late last week seeks to have a Dane County judge declare that an 1897 law banning the practice of fusion voting is unconstitutional because it restricts the rights to a “free government,” equal protection and freedom of speech through a law that was passed to explicitly create a partisan electoral advantage. The motion was filed April 10 in a lawsuit brought last year by United Wisconsin, a nascent centrist political party hoping to offer voters an alternative to the “duopoly” of the Democratic and Republican parties. The group is represented by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward. Fusion voting is a practice through which multiple political parties can nominate the same candidate to the ticket. Under the system, a minor party such as United could choose to nominate its own candidate, but more often the party would endorse one of the major party candidates. Voters would be able to cast their votes for the same preferred candidate under either party line. The brief describes a hypothetical congressional race in which United cross-endorses the Democratic candidate, given the name Olson. After the hypothetical votes are counted, the Republican candidate has earned 48.2% of the vote on the Republican ticket while Olson has earned 45.9% of the vote on the Democratic ticket and 4.9% on the United line. When added together, this gives Olson the win with 50.8% of the total vote.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker