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State of Election Administration Legislation 2025 Mid-Year Report: Topics of note, Election dates
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Absentee/mail-in voting • Early voting • Electoral systems • Voting rights for convicted felons • Private funding • Primary systems • Redistricting • Voter identification |
August 26, 2025
By Ballotpedia staff
Election dates
There are 45 new laws related to election dates and the alignment of election dates in 22 states, including 15 states with Republican trifectas, four with divided governments, and three with Democratic trifectas. Alignment of election dates refers to either moving elections to occur on the same day on which other elections already occur, or moving them to a day without other elections.
In 2025, lawmakers considered nearly as many bills related to election dates as they did in 2023, but adopted fewer new laws to date (80 in 2023).
Seventeen of the 45 new laws change or establish election dates in a specific jurisdiction and only affect local elections in that jurisdiction. All new laws related to alignment of elections this year move, or allow election officials to move elections to a date where other elections already occur, or study the impact of doing so. This includes seven states that adopted 11 laws that align election dates with other elections for at least some elections, or allow local officials to do so. Two other states passed legislation to study the effect of aligning dates. States of all trifecta statuses adopted laws that align election dates with other elections.
Among these bills are:
- SB 353 in Arkansas, which moves the state’s primary to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March, the same date that it already holds presidential preference primaries. Arkansas also adopted HB 1742, which establishes uniform election dates for school board elections, as the state primary election date in even-numbered years and the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March in odd-numbered years.
- HB 2022 in Kansas, which establishes that any special election must occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March or on the same day as the general election or statewide primary. It eliminates multiple previous possibilities for the date of a special election.
- HB 75 in Maryland, which specifies that a special election for a county committee or county executive position be set at least 90 days after the county council adopts a resolution calling for the election, and must not be within 120 days of a regularly scheduled election.
- Mississippi’s HB 293, which changes the congressional preference primary date in a non- presidential election year from the first Tuesday in June to the second Tuesday in March.
- South Dakota’s HB 1130 permits municipal and school district board elections to be held the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June or the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. It also requires municipalities that combine general and school district board elections in odd-numbered years to hold such elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June, or the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
- Texas’s HB 3546 authorizes the governing body of an independent school district that holds its general election for officers on a date other than the November election date to change the election date to the November uniform election date.
- Also in Texas, several bills permit specific municipalities to align their elections with other existing election dates, including SB 447 and SB 914.
- In West Virginia, where SB 50 requires all local municipal elections to be held concurrently with a regularly scheduled statewide primary or general election beginning in 2032, at the latest. Previously, this alignment of election dates was optional for local municipal elections.
- HJR 443 in Virginia, which establishes a joint legislative subcommittee to study the effects of moving some or all of Virginia’s state or local elections to even-numbered years in order to coincide with the federal election cycle. Virginia is one of four states—with Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey—that hold state elections in odd years.
Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
State election laws are changing. Keeping track of the latest developments in all 50 states can seem like an impossible job.
Here's the solution: Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker.
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About the authors
Joe Greaney is a staff writer on Ballotpedia's Law Team.
Ballotpedia Managing Editor Janie Valentine reviewed the report and provided feedback, as did Senior Editor Norm Leahy Associate Director of Features Cory Eucalitto.
See also
- Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- About Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- Voting laws in the United States
- Election Policy
