How Voting Laws Have Changed in Battleground States Since 2020

In nine battleground states in this year’s presidential elections, voting rules will look considerably different than they did four years ago. In the years since the 2020 election, many states have aggressively attempted to restrict voting access. Limiting absentee voting has been the most prevalent tactic, while several of these states have also enacted laws that permit partisan interference in elections or threaten the people and processes that make elections work.

On the other hand, some states have prioritized expanding voting access. Across the country, the number of new expansive laws enacted continues to outpace new restrictive ones. In the swing states that played a pivotal role in the last presidential election — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin — legislatures have been especially active in changing the laws that govern voting and elections.

Due to court orders and delayed implementation dates, not all these new laws will be in effect by November, but the vast majority will. To help navigate voting in the 2024 election cycle, the Brennan Center has pinpointed how the voting landscape has changed in these nine states since 2020 and what these changes will mean for voters.¹

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 4 restrictive, 4 interference-related, 4 expansive

Arizona has enacted more than a dozen new voting laws, many of them focusing on election interference and restricting voting. Courts have blunted the most extreme restrictions.

This year, Arizona will have at least four new restrictive laws in place that were not in effect in 2020. Two of them make it more difficult to correct absentee ballot signature defects, which could affect many voters in a state where more than 75 percent of people vote by mail.¹The remaining two are aimed at noncitizen voting, an issue that has recently regained national attention even though voting by noncitizens is already illegal and exceedingly rare.

A federal court struck down the most restrictive parts of a 2022 law expanding the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.²One of the provisions that was blocked would have prohibited voters who lack documentary proof of citizenship from voting in presidential elections — in clear violation of federal law.³Another portion of the law, which remains in force, imposes stricter proof-of-residence requirements on certain voters.⁴The case challenging this restrictive law is ongoing.

Another new law, passed in 2022, risks wrongfully purging voters ahead of the election based on outdated information indicating noncitizenship (e.g., those who became naturalized citizens since the information was collected).⁵Arizona has enacted at least two other restrictive voting laws after 2020, but one will not affect voters until 2025⁶and the state’s highest court struck down the other for violating the Arizona Constitution.⁷

Election officials in Arizona will also contend with four new interference laws that were not on the books in 2020.⁸All four impose criminal penalties on election workers for routine election-related activity, such as sending a mail ballot to a voter who did not affirmatively request one. A fifth law would have allowed for partisan interference in elections but was struck down before taking effect.⁹

Additionally, Arizona has enacted four laws since the last presidential election to make voting easier, each of which are targeted changes. Of note, a 2022 law eliminated the two-year waiting period for individuals with multiple felony convictions to apply to have their voting rights restored.¹⁰The other three add two hours of early in-person voting on the Friday before Election Day,¹¹expand voting options for anyone with a visual impairment,¹²and ease voter registration for people applying for fishing or gaming licenses.¹³

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 2 restrictive, 3 interference-related, 0 expansive

Florida has made it harder to access the ballot box and heightened the risk of state-sanctioned voter intimidation.

This year, Floridians will encounter two new restrictive voting laws for the first time in a presidential election. The first is a 2021 law fueled by conspiracy theories about 2020. Among other things, it imposes a litany of constraints on mail voting, all of which remain in effect despite extensive litigation. Voters will now face stricter ID requirements to obtain a mail ballot, dramatically reduced access to drop boxes, new limits on who can assist voters, and more burdensome requirements to stay on the mail voting list.¹

The second law takes aim at voter registration. It imposes new requirements on voter registration organizations and substantially increases financial penalties for human error. Since taking effect, it has had a measurable chilling effect on get-out-the-vote groups across the state, prompting many to shut down registration drives.²

Florida has also added three interference laws to the books.³Permitting aggressive prosecution of purported election crimes is a theme. One law created a partisan election police unit within the Florida Department of State tasked with investigating voting “irregularities.”⁴The office’s “opening salvo” was to arrest 20 people with past felony convictions for alleged voter fraud — even though publicly available information suggests that most if not all of the individuals genuinely thought they were eligible to vote and received voter information cards from the state.

The apparent intent of the prosecutions, which are led by statewide prosecutors, is to intimidate eligible voters. After several state courts in 2023 held that statewide prosecutors lack the authority to prosecute the cases, the Florida legislature passed a second law⁵during a special legislative session to allow the prosecutions to continue.

The state has not enacted any laws to expand access to voting since 2020.

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 2 restrictive, 6 interference-related, 1 expansive

Georgia has made it harder to vote and facilitated election interference.

In early 2021, the Georgia legislature passed Senate Bill 202. This 98-page law takes aim at all sorts of ways people vote. On mail voting, it cuts the window to request a ballot by more than half, requires counties to wait longer to mail out ballots, establishes new ID rules, bars officials from mailing ballots that voters have not requested, and severely restricts the availability of drop box locations and hours (especially in large cities).¹

The law also makes it harder for voters who go to the wrong precinct to have their ballots counted and it bans mobile voting centers. Many of these provisions are in response to the 2020 election, when Georgians voted by mail in unprecedented numbers and certain areas (like Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta) widely distributed drop boxes and brought mobile voting centers to churches, parks, and libraries.²

S.B. 202 has faced extensive litigation. A federal court blocked provisions that banned giving food and water to voters waiting in line and required voters to write their birth dates on absentee ballot envelopes, although the food and water decision is currently on appeal. That means the law will be almost entirely in force for this year’s election, where it may have far-reaching disenfranchising effects. The other restrictive law makes it easier to remove eligible voters from the rolls through voter challenges.³

Georgia has also enacted six interference laws, including S.B. 202. These laws increase partisanship on the State Election Board and give the newly partisan State Election Board authority to meddle with local election boards,⁴ grant the Georgia Bureau of Investigation authority to investigate election issues and recommend them for prosecution,⁵and criminalize election officials taking private grants for running elections.⁶Three of the laws replace the members of county election boards with partisan appointments.⁷

In addition to those three laws, Georgia enacted several laws in 2021 to restructure local boards of election. These laws may have qualified as interference legislation when they were passed. However, the Brennan Center only began comprehensively tracking this category of legislation in January 2022. These types of laws, whether passed in 2021 or 2022, have led to the ouster of Black election officials across the state; in turn, the new boards have taken actions that negatively affect Black voters such as eliminating Sunday voting hours.

The lone expansive law extends state employees’ paid time off for voting to include in-person early voting.⁸

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 0 restrictive, 0 interference-related, 10 expansive

Michigan has dramatically expanded access to voting.

After Michigan voters approved a swath of pro-voter reforms in 2018 and 2022, the state has greatly increased access to the ballot box. In 2023, Michigan passed 12 expansive voting laws. Some of the new laws implement or build on the 2022 ballot measure and others make brand-new changes. These 12 laws amount to the most expansive legislation enacted by one state in a single year in the past decade.¹All except two will be in effect this fall.²

Of the 10 laws in place for this year’s election, 5 make it easier to vote by mail: they permit individuals to register online for a mail ballot,³create a permanent mail voting list (meaning people apply once and automatically get mailed a ballot for future elections),⁴implement a ballot curing process and require prepaid postage on mail ballot application and return envelopes,⁵increase drop box access,⁶and extend the mail ballot receipt deadline for uniformed or overseas voters.⁷Two of them make it easier to register to vote by opening up preregistration to 16-year-olds⁸and widening access to same-day registration.⁹The other three improve voting access by allowing nine days of early voting,¹⁰expanding the list of acceptable voter IDs,¹¹and repealing a prohibition on people hiring transportation to take voters to the polls.¹²

Since 2020, the Michigan legislature has not passed a single restrictive or election interference bill.

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 0 restrictive, 0 interference-related, 6 expansive

Nevada has increased opportunities for voters to register and cast a ballot.

Though Nevada may be a battleground state at the polls, its trajectory on voting rights is clear: the state legislature has only expanded voting access over the last four years. Since 2020, Nevada has enacted six expansive election laws.¹One of the most notable is the implementation of universal mail voting, a pandemic-response measure that the legislature has made permanent.²

Three of the laws include provisions that expand access for voters who live on Native American reservations.³Notably, one law streamlines the process to set up polling places and drop boxes on Native American reservations, removing a common barrier for tribal voters.⁴Tribes previously had to submit a request for a polling place or drop box, but now both will be established by default on reservations unless the tribe opts out.

In addition, Nevada has extended automatic voter registration to new agencies, including the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, and it has authorized the governor to designate any agency of a Native American tribe as a voter registration agency upon request.⁵Eligible individuals in a county or city jail will also have improved voting access, as state law now requires jails to introduce procedures for incarcerated people to securely register and cast a ballot.⁶

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 2 restrictive, 0 interference-related, 0 expansive¹

North Carolina has added barriers to voting, including a mail voting restriction and a resurrected voter ID law.

While divided government has slowed the pace of changes to North Carolina’s voting laws, one sweeping new restrictive law will confront voters this year. In 2023, Republican lawmakers used their new veto-proof majority to enact an omnibus restrictive voting law over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.²The law moves the deadline for receipt of mail ballots from three days after Election Day to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, which would have affected more than 11,600 ballots if it had been in place in 2020.³

Another provision, which is the subject of several lawsuits, requires officials to reject the ballot and cancel the registration of a voter using same-day registration if an address verification notice mailed to the voter comes back as undeliverable. To comply with a court order, the state will now notify such voters and provide an opportunity to correct the error.

This year also marks the first presidential election in which North Carolina’s 2018 photo ID law will be in force. The requirement stems from the North Carolina Supreme Court’s unprecedented 2023 reversal of its earlier decision declaring the law unconstitutional. Under the new law, those without acceptable ID must vote a provisional ballot and either return with proper ID or complete a form attesting to a specific impediment.⁴

Republicans also used their veto-proof majority to enact an interference law in 2023, but a court swiftly struck it down. The case is on appeal. If implemented, the law would change the makeup of election boards in a manner that increases the chances of deadlock on vital processes like certification.⁵

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 0 restrictive, 0 interference-related, 0 expansive

Inaction by the legislature means that Pennsylvania voters will face a familiar landscape to 2020, for better or worse.

Pennsylvania is one of only two states (along with Alaska) that has not passed an expansive, restrictive, or interference law since the 2020 presidential election. This is not because the state’s election systems are flawless — lawmakers have sought to enact a variety of changes over the last four years. This year, for example, legislators have considered expansive bills to establish same-day registration,¹expand early voting,²and increase registration opportunities for people released from incarceration,³as well as restrictive ones that would roll back mail voting,⁴shorten absentee ballot request windows,⁵and impose new voter ID requirements.⁶As a result of political gridlock, none have passed.

Political impasses have left at least two administrative issues around mail voting unresolved that may affect this fall’s election. The first is the lack of pre-processing and pre-canvassing of absentee ballots. These processes allow officials to prepare to count and then count absentee ballots before Election Day. Pennsylvania law currently does not permit either. As a result, poll workers will again be unable to get a jumpstart on handling the hundreds of thousands of ballots that arrive before Election Day. The prohibition is why the state experienced a mail ballot backlog and had to count beyond Election Day in 2020. A bill to address the issue passed the state house on a party line vote but stalled in the senate — meaning that Pennsylvania will likely be among later states to report results this November.⁷

The second issue involves undated mail ballot envelopes. Due to a recent federal court ruling, voters who fail to date the envelope for their mail ballot may not have those votes counted, depending on the outcome of other ongoing litigation. Voting rights advocates argue that the date is not “material,” in which case federal law requires the ballot to count. As with legislative efforts to address preprocessing, attempts by lawmakers to resolve this issue have stalled.⁸

Recent history shows that compromise is not impossible in Pennsylvania.⁹Nevertheless, until the deadlock breaks, Pennsylvanians are at increased risk of having valid mail ballots rejected.

New laws in effect for the 2024 election: 4 restrictive, 3 interference-related, 3 expansive

On voting access, Texas has given a few inches — and lurched back a mile.

Legislative changes to voting in Texas since 2020 revolve around 2021’s Senate Bill 1, a law replete with both restrictive and interference provisions. S.B. 1 makes it harder for voters to get assistance with mail ballots, imposes harsher voter ID requirements, increases barriers for voters with disabilities, reduces polling place availability, and limits early voting opportunities. It also makes it a crime for election workers to encourage voters to request a mail ballot or “tak[e] any action” that would make a poll watcher’s observation “not reasonably effective.” (The law is unclear on what exactly this means.)

S.B. 1 has faced extensive litigation, but repeated delays have put it on track to be almost fully in effect this fall, creating new voting challenges for many Texans. Only a couple of provisions related to voter assistance are currently blocked. The effects go beyond preventing eligible voters from getting and returning ballots. At the trial for the federal lawsuit challenging the law, election workers testified that they no longer want to serve because of the threat of criminal prosecution for routine supervision of rogue poll watchers.

Additionally, Texas has passed three restrictive, three expansive, and two interference laws. The restrictive laws limit valid reasons to vote by mail,¹call for purges of people registered at nonresidential addresses (thus barring voters legally registered at nonresidential addresses, including homeless voters and domestic abuse victims shielding their addresses),²and allow some counties to consolidate polling places.³The expansive laws make it easier for counties to expand early voting hours,⁴add disability accommodations and create online mail ballot applications,⁵and give voters more opportunities (and time) to correct mail ballot errors.⁶The interference laws impose criminal penalties on poll workers for miscounting votes,⁷and allow a political appointee to exercise intense oversight over day-to-day election administration in Harris County, which includes Houston.⁸

Each of these laws is significant in its own right, but the numbers can obscure the real story: voting in Texas is more difficult than it was four years ago.

Wisconsin’s voting laws have barely changed since the 2020 election, but only because of several gubernatorial vetoes.

Lawmakers in Wisconsin have made multiple attempts over the past few years to enact restrictive legislation. They would have succeeded but for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who vetoed at least seven restrictive bills that the Republican-controlled legislature passed. Four would have restricted the mail voting process, making it harder to apply for,¹ return,²or have a mail ballot counted.³The fifth would have made it more difficult to join and remain on the state’s permanent mail voting list.⁴The sixth and seventh would have mandated the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify with the Division of Motor Vehicles that registered voters are citizens.⁵Motor vehicle data is often outdated, meaning that people who have become naturalized citizens may be wrongfully purged.

The governor also vetoed interference legislation that would have imposed criminal penalties on election officials. The most recent proposal would have subjected election workers to criminal penalties for not allowing poll watchers increased proximity to observe voters at polling places.⁶Other vetoed bills would have criminalized election officials accepting private funding for administering elections⁷or sending a mail ballot to a voter who did not expressly request one.⁸

Meanwhile, Wisconsin voters benefit from one new expansive law, which limits situations in which polling places can be closed within 30 days of an election.⁹