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US Election Terms Explained

Ballot measures

Apart from national, statewide and local races, many states have measures on the ballot, which are issues or questions that voters are asked to decide. Topics of this year’s ballot measures include marijuana, voting-related policies and abortion, the latter of which is appearing on ballots in six states. The increase in abortion-related measures follows this year’s Supreme Court decision overturning a national right to an abortion, which gave states the final power to set most abortion laws.

Call a winner

News outlets often “call” a winner before every ballot is counted and before officials announce final results. This is because it often takes days or weeks before all votes are counted in many districts and, often, partial results are enough to mathematically determine a winner. However, when a race is close, news agencies usually wait to call a winner until final results are given. The Associated Press, which calls races throughout the United States, says it “does not make projections and will only declare a winner when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap.”

Competitive races

Competitive races are heavily followed because both the Democratic and Republican candidates are seen as having a legitimate chance of winning. Most races are not considered competitive. According to Reuters, 43 House races out of the chamber’s 435 seats up for election – or about 10% — are considered competitive this year.

Democrats

Democrats make up the Democratic Party, one of the two main parties in the United States. Currently, Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress. However, the party’s hold on Congress is slim with an eight-seat majority in the House of Representatives and control in the equally divided Senate resulting only because Vice President Kalama Harris can break a tie.

Early voting

Many U.S. states allow citizens to cast ballots in person at a polling station prior to the election. Some states allow anyone to do this (called no-excuse early voting), while other states allow it only for those with a valid reason, such as old age or disability. Forty-six states permit some form of no-excuse early voting, according to the election website Ballopedia.

Election Day

By law, general elections in the United States take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year Election Day is Nov. 8.

Exit polls

Exit polls are surveys of voters usually taken as they leave, or exit, their polling places. They can be used to project the winner in races where the margin between candidates is large. They are also used to collect demographic data about voters and gain insights into voters’ motivations, information which is not captured at the ballot box.

Legislative branch

The legislative branch of the U.S. government refers to the U.S. Congress, which is made up of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. It makes laws that govern the country. The other two branches of the U.S. government are the executive branch — which includes the presidency and most federal agencies and is responsible for carrying out the laws — and the judicial branch, which evaluates laws. A similar three-part structure is found in U.S. state governments.

Midterms

Elections that take place two years after a presidential vote, or halfway through a president’s term, are called “midterms.” They are often seen as a referendum on the sitting president’s policies because they are the first national vote after a presidential election.

Mail-in ballots/Absentee ballots

These are ballots that are usually mailed by voters to election offices in sealed envelopes. Some states allow voters to return their absentee or mail-in ballots in person to voting centers or municipal offices.

Mail-in voting

Every U.S. state allows at least some of its residents to vote by mail, according to the election website Ballopedia. Some states, like California, mail a ballot to every resident in the state, while others, like Texas, allow mail-in voting only for residents with a valid reason, such as old age or disability.

Redistricting

States redraw district lines every 10 years to take into account population changes. The process is meant to ensure that districts accurately represent the current population, but often become marred by politics with both Democrats and Republicans seeking to create districts that will benefit their party. The 2022 midterms will be the first national elections to occur since redistricting took place in 2020. Republicans are positioned to gain three to four House seats in 2022 due to redistricting alone, according to an analysis of data by Five Thirty Eight, a website that focuses on analysis of political opinion polls.

Representatives

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are called “representatives.” The House is one of two bodies in the U.S. Congress along with the Senate. Because all House members serve two-year terms, the entire House of Representatives — with its 435 seats — is up for election during the midterms. House members represent a portion of their state known as a congressional district, which averages nearly 750,000 people.

Republicans

Republicans make up the Republican Party, also called the GOP, one of the two main parties in the United States. Currently, Republicans are the party out of power, controlling neither the presidency nor a majority in either chamber in Congress. They are looking to win one or both houses of Congress during the midterms. Because of a historical tendency for the president’s party to lose seats in the House during midterms, Republicans are seen as the favorites to win at least one congressional chamber.

Senator

This is the title given to members of the U.S. Senate, one of two bodies in the U.S. Congress along with the House of Representatives. Because senators serve six-year terms, only about a third of the Senate – with its 100 seats — is up for election during the midterms. Each U.S. state has two senators that it sends to Washington.

Swing states

States where the two parties have similar levels of support are known as “swing states” because either party could easily win them. Swing states can shift over time and are also known as battleground states, toss-up states or purple states (the color resulting from a mix of the traditional Democratic color – blue — and the Republican color — red).

Turnout for midterms

Historically, the turnout — the number of people who vote in an election — is lower during midterms than in presidential election years. The average turnout in presidential elections between 1980 and 2018 was 56.7% of registered voters, while the midterm turnout for that same period was 40.5% according to data from the U.S. Election Project.

Voter fraud

Voter fraud has been a national topic of conversation since the 2020 presidential election when then-President Donald Trump alleged without evidence that the vote was tainted by fraud. Leading up to the vote, Trump also argued that mail-in balloting was less secure than in person votes, while Democratic leaders argued voting by mail was just as secure and would make it easier for people to vote. One result of that debate was that over the past two years, Democratic-controlled states, like Vermont, were more likely to increase access to voting by mail, while Republican-controlled states, like Texas, were more likely to restrict it. The integrity of the U.S. election system is likely to again be up for debate during this year’s midterms.
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US House Committee Gives Trump Until Next Week to Produce Documents

The House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump said Friday it had given the former president until next week to begin producing documents requested under a subpoena. 

The January 6 committee announced on October 21 that it had sent a subpoena to Trump requiring documents to be submitted by November 4 and for him to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about November 14. 

“We have received correspondence from the former president and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” the House Select Committee’s chairperson, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, and vice chairperson, Republican Representative Liz Cheney, said in a statement. 

“We have informed the former president’s counsel that he must begin producing records no later than next week and he remains under subpoena for deposition testimony starting on November 14th,” the statement said. 

The committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans are seeking a wide range of documents from Trump that would detail communications he may have had before January 6 and beyond with lawmakers and members of extremist groups, as well as associates and former aides. 

Additional documents and communications being sought relate to information detailing possible travel of people to the Capitol on January 6 and communications relating to efforts to encourage states to delay certifying election results or certify alternate slates of “electors” who would support naming Trump as the winner. 

Trump has accused the committee of waging unfair political attacks on him while refusing to investigate his charges of widespread election fraud. 

A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. 

Trump had not been expected to cooperate with the subpoena and could simply try to run out the clock. The committee’s mandate will likely end early next year if Republicans win a majority in the midterm elections on Tuesday. 

Thousands of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to prevent certification of the election result after Trump delivered a fiery speech featuring false claims that his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. 

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot, more than 140 police officers were injured, the Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage and then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and staff were sent running for their lives. 
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US Security Officials Warn Lone Actors Likely the Biggest Election Threat

U.S. officials charged with helping to secure the upcoming midterm elections fear the most dangerous and most likely threats may be difficult or impossible to detect in advance, and that the risk of violence will only escalate once the polls close.

The assessment, based on intelligence from multiple agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Counterterrorism Center, has been shared in recent weeks with state and local law enforcement agencies, lending increased urgency to their efforts to secure the vote.

Parts of the assessment also have been shared publicly, including by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which serves as the national lead on election security.

“You’ve got these horrible physical security concerns at an unprecedented level,” CISA Director Jen Easterly told a forum in Washington on Tuesday. “Threats of intimidation, of violence, of harassment against election officials, polling places, voters.”

The most plausible threat, according to a U.S. official who asked not to be quoted and spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence, is from a so-called lone wolf — an individual who may or may not be associated with an extremist group and decides to act on his or her own.

Such individuals are likely to be driven by a belief that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was fraudulent as well as by other hot-button political issues, the official said.

Likely targets could range from election-related infrastructure, such as polling places and ballot drop boxes, to election workers, voters and even political candidates and events like Election Day rallies and watch parties, the official added, noting a decision on which target to go after could come down to ease of access.

But much of what has election security officials so concerned is that extra motivation for anyone leaning toward violence is easily accessible.

Misinformation campaign targets

This past week, CISA warned that U.S. adversaries are using misinformation and other influence operations to incite violence against election officials.

CISA officials and those with other U.S. agencies declined to share additional specifics. But some researchers have found reason to worry.

“The influence attempts … do not directly encourage people to undertake violent actions, but very likely lay the groundwork and allude to some physical action,” Brian Liston, a senior threat intelligence analyst for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, told VOA by email.

Some of it can be tied to Russia’s infamous troll farm, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which has been reactivating accounts on social media platforms, especially those that cater to far-right audiences, and has set up a new website to promote allegations of voter fraud, he said.

“Headlines provided on the site recently say that ‘Democrats will use everything in their disposal to manipulate votes and counting,’ and … accuse Democrats of burning a mail truck in Georgia containing Republican ballots,” Liston said.

One image found by Recorded Future, posted by an IRA-linked account under the name Nora Berka, further fans the flames, claiming, “Yes, we are at war,” along with an image of former President Donald Trump holding a rifle.

The graphic further states, “Democrats are your sworn enemies.”

Recorded Future warns it is not just the troll farms.

“Russian state media and covert media sources are very likely intending to subtly lay the groundwork for some sort of physical action,” Liston said, pointing to headlines that talk about mobilizing to prevent voter fraud and secret armies.

Liston said Iran state-sponsored outlets, like the Tehran Times and Tasnim News Agency are also pushing violent undertones, noting a recent article [November 1] from the Tehran Times warning, “there are growing fears the country could slip into a civil war.”

Unlike Recorded Future, the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks official state actors and state-backed media, told VOA it has not seen information campaigns “specifically encouraging violence.”

But that does not mean that adversaries, such as Russia, would not welcome election-related violence.

“Their proven strategy is to amplify the most polarizing and extreme content to further divide the electorate,” the ASD’s Rachael Dean Wilson told VOA. “If their strategy incites or contributes to inciting violence, it would serve their ultimate goal of chaos.”

Graphika, a social media analytics firm, said it has seen a renewed effort by Russian actors to target far-right audiences in the U.S. but that the efforts have failed to make much of an impact and that the campaigns have not sought to glorify or encourage violence.

Requests for comment by VOA to the Russian embassy and to the Iranian Mission to the U.N. regarding the allegations by U.S. officials and by researchers were not immediately answered. Both have denied allegations of meddling in U.S. elections in the past.

Still, officials and researchers expect the online narratives, and the threat of violence, to persist and possibly worsen after the polls close.

The U.S. official who spoke to VOA about the intelligence assessments on the condition of anonymity, said prolonged certification processes and potential legal challenges could fuel existing grievances and spur potential attacks.

And while officials from multiple agencies admit the warnings may sound dire, they argue the events of the past several years, such as the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, warrant the high level of concern.

“We’ve seen the domestic terrorism threat grow for the last two years,” FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Robert Wells told a forum on homeland security late last month. “We’ve also seen the anti-government cases grow, obviously January 6. So, our case numbers have gone up.”

The number of reported threats against election workers also has jumped.

According to the FBI, there have been more than 1,000 reports since June 2021, leading to at least six arrests. And almost 60% of the reported threats came from seven states – Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin – all of which ran audits or saw considerable debate about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

And the threatening chatter has not slowed.

“What really concerns us, it is the threats to election workers. It’s calls for a second civil war, which we’re seeing in some of the [social media] platforms,” Washington, D.C., Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency Director Chris Rodriguez said last month, speaking alongside the FBI’s Wells.

“We need to make sure that we have the intelligence and information we need to keep our communities safe as the experience on January 6th really showed us,” he said.
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Asians Running for Office Encounter Hurdles in Reaching Asian Voters

Asians make up a quarter of the residents in the greater Houston area of the U.S. state of Texas. A few are elected officials or are running for office in the midterm elections. They share with VOA’s Elizabeth Lee their keys to political success and discuss the challenge of reaching Asian voters. Videographer and producer: Elizabeth Lee
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This Election Day, Millions of Americans Won’t Be Voting in English

This Election Day, more than 80 million Americans will have the option to vote in a language other than English, thanks to a federal provision that guarantees language assistance in the voting process for certain groups of people.

“The idea was to take groups that were historically excluded from the electoral process, and the mission was to make it more accessible for some of those groups,” says Gabe Osterhout, a research associate at the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University.

The original Voting Rights Act of 1965 focused primarily on the rights of African Americans in the South. The act was broadened in 1975 to include certain language minorities — Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Latinos and Asian Americans — to make voting more accessible.

“English voting materials or information functions essentially as a literacy test that precludes people who may be fully literate in their native language, or may not be literate in any language, but it functions as a barrier to the ability to participate,” says Jim Tucker, senior special counsel with the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Every five years, the U.S. Census Bureau determines which minority language groups must be accommodated with information in their primary language. That decision is based on whether more than 5% of eligible voters in an area speak limited English, or if there are more than 10,000 eligible voters in a jurisdiction with limited English proficiency.

Local elections officials are then required to offer voting materials, including ballots, in that second language.

In December 2021, Census listed the 331 jurisdictions that meet that threshold ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. It’s the largest number of jurisdictions ever covered by the federal provision, 68 more than in 2016.

Most of the covered jurisdictions are counties and municipalities, but three are states. California, Florida and Texas must provide Spanish-language voting materials in every statewide election, even though certain localities in those states are not required to provide bilingual ballots for their local contests.

More than 80 million voting-age citizens live in the areas where election officials are required to provide minority language assistance.

While the U.S. Justice Department tells the affected jurisdictions that they meet the guidelines and must provide language assistance, there is no built-in mechanism to enforce the rule.

“If we’re trying to understand its impact on turnout, well, we don’t really know who’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing among the counties that are covered,” Osterhout says. “And then on the flip side, there’s counties that aren’t covered, or cities or townships that aren’t covered, but might choose to offer these materials anyway.”

However, an analysis of registration and voting data from November 1996 and 2000 found evidence that “the language provisions of the Voting Rights Act have significant and positive effects on the voting rates of covered linguistic minorities.”

For example, professors Michael Jones-Correa and Israel Waismel-Manor found that voter turnout among Latinos was 11% higher in counties covered by the Voting Rights Act language requirements than in counties that did not provide materials and assistance in Spanish. They also found that voter registration among Latinos was 15% higher in counties that provided language assistance than those that did not.

“We’ve really seen substantial increases in participation by all the language minority groups that were covered, which there are four groups: American Indians, Alaska Natives, Latino or Spanish-speaking voters and Asian Americans who speak Asian languages since 1975, and a lot of that is directly attributable to the language provision for voting rights,” says Tucker, who is also the author of “The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots.”

He added that the language requirements do not put an increased financial burden on the covered counties.

“In many cases, there’s no additional costs,” he says, “but even where there is, it’s not a true unfunded federal mandate, because the federal government actually has provided funding to either offset, or in some cases, cover in its entirety whatever costs the jurisdiction might incur.”

The Voting Rights Act was initially supposed to expire by 1970, but it has been reauthorized five times with large, bipartisan majorities. It was last reauthorized in 2006 for 25 years.

“This is not a situation where it’s really a power grab by either party, because you just see such a diversity in terms of political views and who the candidates are that are supported, and political parties supported among the limited English proficient voters who get assistance,” Tucker says.

Mary Brennan, a professor of history at Texas State University, agrees that it’s a mistake to assume people who vote in different languages will vote a certain way.

“We make assumptions about how people of different languages are going to vote. We say, ‘Oh, these are immigrants, so they’re going to vote Democratic’. …We can’t assume what those people are going to do. People who voted in Spanish in Florida might be very conservative,” Brennan says. “I think it’s really dangerous to make assumptions about how people are voting just because they’re voting in a different language.”

And even if huge numbers of people don’t end up taking advantage of the opportunity to vote in their primary language, the effort isn’t wasted, in Osterhout’s view.

“Even if they don’t end up pursuing that right and don’t end up voting, there’s still value in recognizing that there’s a moral benefit to making voting more accessible,” he says.
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Rally Urges US Midterm Voting Connected to Christianity

Laura Brown came more than 1,800 kilometers from Gulfport, Mississippi, to attend the ReAwaken America Tour in Manheim, Pennsylvania. She carried a shofar, a musical instrument used in Jewish religious ceremonies. But this was no Jewish event. She raised the long curved horn to her mouth, took a deep breath, and blew the ancient horn to signal a start to the second day of the Christian, mainly white, mainly Republican rally that is the bedrock of the Christian Nationalism movement in the United States.

About 5,000 people filled seats in a sports complex for two days of politically conservative speakers. Most preached a return of Christianity to the country by electing candidates who embrace Christian policies. Others railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, challenged the 2020 presidential election results, or defended the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol while promoting books, videos, podcasts and private health insurance. The main draw is retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was introduced as “America’s General” and treated like a movie star, signing autographs and his book, and introducing prominent speakers.

Flynn was forced to retire from the military in 2014. Three years later, he became national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Then he resigned after 22 days — the shortest term ever for a U.S. national security adviser — and ultimately pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, a crime that was pardoned by Trump.

‘Frightened by their own government’

With 43 sold-out rallies, Flynn told VOA what these crowds crave. “People are frightened by their own government,” he said. “They are looking to see what they can do.”

The speakers offer them one main idea: vote. And vote for godly Republicans. A fiery African American preacher took the stage in a blue suit with a white shirt, red tie and pocket scarf. Pastor Mark Burns, touted as “Donald Trump’s Pastor” brought the crowd to its feet as he said, “Are you ready to go to war for the Lord Jesus Christ? Shout ‘yeeeeeahhhhhhh!’ I’m here to declare war on every race-baited Democrat and every evil scheme that comes from the gates of hell.”

On President Joe Biden, “We got to get rid of him right now,” Burns said. “I’m a proud Christian nationalist. … Are there any other Christian nationalists here?” and he got a thunderous affirmative response.

By the time he was off the stage, he came to VOA’s camera soaked with sweat from his emotional, energetic address. “When people say you shouldn’t be preaching religion from your pulpit, that’s ridiculous,” he told us. “The Revolutionary War was led by pastors.”

Taking an oath to preach politics

A tall, soft-spoken white pastor with a full head of white hair took the stage. The Rev. Bill Cook of America’s Black Robe Regiment called all pastors to the front of the arena to take the “Gideon Pledge.” His wife joined him on stage and held a tall board with six elements. No. 2 was a promise to “preach a minimum of one election sermon prior to every election.” No. 4 was an oath to teach that “voting in every election for the most godly candidates is a sacred duty incumbent upon every person professing faith [in] Jesus Christ.”

Parts of the “Gideon Pledge” appear at odds with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution dictating a “separation of church and state.” Beyond that, churches are designated nonprofit groups that are exempt from taxes and are prohibited from engaging in political activity under that exemption.

Stephanie Robbins spent 10 years with the Internal Revenue Service, the agency responsible for collecting federal taxes, and is now with Harmon Curran, a nationally recognized law firm specializing in tax exemption and election activity.

Crossing the line on the pulpits

When VOA shared the Gideon Pledge with Robbins, she said it is going to “cross the line at some point” and explained why the law is in place. “It’s speech that the government has chosen not to subsidize,” said Robbins, since nonprofits already receive special benefits within the tax code. “That’s why it’s important that they don’t talk about it from the pulpit.”

Flynn told VOA he doesn’t interpret the First Amendment that way. “It means freedom of religion, not Christianity or Judaism, it’s freedom of conscience, to have freedom to believe what you want to believe,” he said.

Pastors argue they do not promote specific candidates. But by directing their congregations to vote for the Christian candidate, Robbins says, in some cases, that can identify one candidate.

Cook said, “The notion of separation as it is portrayed today” would have been actively fought by the nation’s founders because “the members of Congress understood that the church had really founded America, and the pastors were the founding fathers, and they would have started another revolution.”

When asked about the exclusion of other religions, Flynn said, “there’s all kinds of faiths out here” but he pointed out that Christianity is the “largest faith in the country.”

Surveys put Christians at about 64% of the U.S. population, but a Pew Research study shows that if current declines continue, Christians could fall below 50% in the next 50 years.

Another Pew study shows 45% of those surveyed think America should be a Christian nation.

But 77% do not think churches should endorse political candidates.

Meantime, a FiveThirtyEight survey shows 58% think the government should enforce the separation of church and state.

Christians against Christians

Within the offices of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, two women sat at a round table, with headphones on, microphones facing them and laptops open. “Welcome to Respecting Religion,” announced Executive Director Amanda Tyler as she began the weekly podcast with General Counsel Holly Hollman. Tyler called Christian nationalism “a virulent and potentially dangerous ideology … regardless of our religious identity,” and pointed to a Flynn quote of “one nation under God, one religion under God” as proof of him calling for a theocracy of one religion that’s enforced by the government. Tyler translated that to mean to “really belong in America, you have to be Christian, you have to be white, you have to espouse certain political views that can lead to danger for certain people because it creates second class citizens.”

Tyler and Hollman created the group “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” because of what they see as ReAwaken America rhetoric motivating people to political violence. The women have organized counter rallies in ReAwaken America tour cities.

A few days prior, a panel discussion at Georgetown University addressed “How White Christian Nationalism Threatens our Democracy.”

The Rev. Michael Curry, the top bishop in the Episcopal Church, told VOA, “In over 40 years as a pastor, as an ordained [pastor], I have never told folk how to vote because that’s not my job.”

So you aren’t tagged as QAnon

The ReAwaken America tour has also been criticized for being a magnet for extreme right-wing groups. When VOA was emailed tickets to attend the Pennsylvania event as media, the tickets said they were for the “Fresh Roasted Coffee Fest & Expo.” When asked about that, a tour official explained “that’s just so computer watchers don’t think you are QAnon.”

QAnon is a loosely organized right-wing political conspiracy group. A podcast popular with QAnon followers gave away tickets to the ReAwaken America event in Pennsylvania.
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Rally Urges Voting Connected to Christianity

The founding of the United States dictates a separation between church and state. But some politicians and other leaders are promoting the idea of connecting them — giving Americans a country run with morals based on Christianity. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti brings us the contentious debate.
Camera: Saqib Ul Islam and Mary Cieslak Video editor: Mary Cieslak
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Voters Concerned About Election Integrity in US Midterms  

Use of fake social media accounts by foreign and domestic actors seeking to rile up U.S. voters are among the many challenges in this year’s U.S. midterm elections. Michelle Quinn reports from Phoenix, Arizona. Producer: Michelle Quinn. Cameras: Levi Stallings, Michelle Quinn.
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How US Voting Laws Have Changed Since 2020

If you’re a registered voter in the Western U.S. state of Nevada, you’d have received a mail-in ballot this year, whether you asked for one or not.

That’s thanks to a new law that the state enacted last year as part of a broader effort to make it easier for people to vote.

But if you’re a voter in the Southwestern state of Texas, that option is not available to you. Indeed, a 2021 Texas law makes it a crime for election officials to automatically send mail-in ballots to voters.

The two laws epitomize the divergent paths that U.S. states have taken in the past two years as they’ve changed their election laws largely in response to the two consequential events of 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. presidential election.

While the U.S. has always had a Balkanized election system, the divide in voting procedures has widened as Democratic-led states have sought to expand voting access by codifying certain pandemic-era measures and adopting other rules, and Republican states have tightened rules in response to concerns about election integrity.

The Nevada legislature is controlled by Democrats, while in Texas Republicans are in charge.

“The result that we’re seeing is that we’re really seeing two different democracies develop in our country where a person’s ZIP code determines their level of ballot access, which is a growing trend,” said Liz Avore, a senior policy adviser at Voting Rights Lab, an organization that tracks election-related legislation.

Nearly every state has made some change to its voting laws over the past two years, according to the Voting Rights Lab.

But while more states have expanded voting access than have restricted it, “for folks in those states that are restricting voter access, it’s going to be more difficult for them to vote,” Avore said.

John Fortier, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said access to voting is not an issue.

“There are a lot of access options in many states,” Fortier said.

Even states that do not encourage voting by mail give that option to many voters, he said.

“Many people are choosing that,” Fortier said.

Changes in voting by mail

The growing divide in state voting procedures can best be seen in voting by mail, Avore said.

While 20 states have made it easier to vote by mail over the past two years, 11 others have made the practice more restrictive, according to a report by the Voting Rights Lab.

Of the 10 restrictive election laws enacted this year, half put new limits on vote by mail, ranging from stricter identification requirements to prohibitions against drop boxes, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Mail voting allows voters to cast ballots mailed to them by election officials. They can return their completed ballots by mail or use designated drop boxes.

Long popular with voters, mail voting saw a dramatic surge during the 2020 election, held during the coronavirus pandemic.

But then-President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the practice, calling it unsafe and prone to fraud, and encouraged his supporters to vote in person instead.

While there is no evidence that mail voting is unsafe, many Republican lawmakers remain suspicious, and they’ve moved to tighten the rules.

Texas is one of several Republican-led states that have made it a crime for election officials to automatically send mail-in ballots or applications to all registered voters.

While in most states voters can vote by mail using basic identifying information such as their name and date of birth, other states such as Florida and Texas have required mail-in voters to provide a driver’s license or Social Security number.

Many U.S. states allow the use of drop boxes to return mail-in ballots. But while several states such as Virginia have expanded access to drop boxes over the past two years, others such as Georgia have reduced the number.

In 2020, Georgia election officials set up secure ballot drop boxes across the state for the first time, with voters using them to return 41% of mail-in ballots.

But this year, “Georgia limited the number of drop boxes each county could have,” said Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and a law professor at George Washington University.

Voter registration and voter rolls

Other restrictive laws affect voter registration and the maintenance of voter rolls, according to the Voting Rights Lab.

Overton said voter registration is “one of the most significant barriers to participation.” Yet the U.S., unlike other major democracies, does not have automatic voter registration, he noted.

That has left each state to adopt its own system. Currently, 22 U.S. states have automatic voter registration. Delaware joined the list last year, but Arizona has moved to bar the method.

Other recently adopted restrictive laws threaten to purge eligible voters from the voter rolls, Overton said.

New laws in Arizona and South Carolina allow voters to be removed from registration lists if government databases show they’re not citizens. This can lead to “faulty purges,” the Brennan Center warns.

Election interference laws

In addition to restrictive voting laws, voting rights advocates have voiced concern over a proliferation of what the Brennan Center and the Voting Rights Lab call “election interference laws.” These are laws that affect the administration of elections rather than the voter experience, Avore said.

Election interference laws come in different forms. One type gives partisan actors such as county election commissioners and poll watchers a greater role in elections.

Another common form imposes criminal penalties on election administrators for failure to enforce new rules such as strict citizenship verification requirements.

The 2021 Texas election law allows poll watchers “to enter the vehicle being used by a voter with a disability to vote curbside,” according to the Voting Rights Lab.

At least seven states have enacted 12 election interference laws this year, according to the Brennan Center.

Republican supporters of these laws say they’re aimed at combating voter fraud. But voting rights groups say they increase the likelihood of political interference in elections.

“The election interference laws really open the opportunity for politicians to select the voters,” Overton said.

Early voting surges

Even as they’ve moved their separate ways in changing their election rules, most states, whether red or blue, have found common ground in one area: allowing early in-person voting.

Avore calls this “one of the bright spots” in new state election laws.

Missouri and South Carolina, both Republican-led states, have established a two-week, no-excuse early voting period.

“So, voters in those states will be able to cast their ballot in person early for the first time this election,” Avore said.

Even states that have otherwise tightened voting rules, including Texas and Georgia, have expanded early voting, according to Avore.

Today, 46 states and the District of Columbia allow early voting, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

Despite warnings about restrictions on voting access, however, it is too early to know their full impact, according to election law experts.

During the Texas primary earlier this year, election officials rejected nearly 25,000 mail ballots that failed to comply with the state’s new law. That’s a rejection rate of more than 12%, up from 2% during the last midterm

But early voting figures suggest high voter enthusiasm, with Texas reporting 4.2 million, Florida 3.6 million and Georgia a record 2.09 million. All three states have been criticized for imposing restrictions on voting access.
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Colorado Voters to Decide on Legalizing Psychedelic Mushrooms

Among the ballot initiatives before U.S. voters on Nov. 8 is a measure that would permit the use of psychedelic mushrooms and other naturally occurring hallucinogens in the Western state of Colorado. Scott Stearns narrates this story by Svitlana Prystynska in Denver. Videographer: Vladimir Petruniv
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