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State of Election Administration Legislation 2025 Mid-Year Report: Topics of note, Voter registration
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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
Voter registration
More than 10% of all election-related legislation this year—680 bills in 48 states — deals with voter registration. These bills propose changes to various aspects of the voter registration process, including:
- establishing same-day registration,
- changing how elections officials verify an individual’s eligibility at the time of registration,
- joining or leaving multistate voter list maintenance (VLM) data sharing compacts,
- other amendments to the list maintenance process, and more.
Same-day registration
Active bills in two states with Democratic trifectas—A 925 / [https:/ legislation.ballotpedia.org/elections/bill/8657 S 1193] in New Jersey and S 5752 in New York—would create same-day voter registration for most elections. Currently, the deadline to register to vote is 21 days before an election in New Jersey and 10 days before an election in New York. Both bills require a same-day applicant to provide identification and would allow same-day registration throughout the early voting period as well as on Election Day.
New Jersey and New York are two of six states with Democratic trifectas that do not have same-day registration. Twenty-one states offer same-day registration on Election Day, including nine where Democrats hold a trifecta, six where Republicans hold a trifecta, and six states with divided governments.
In Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed SB 490 into law on May 5, restricting same-day registration to between the open of polls and noon on Election Day. Previously, Election Day registration could occur at any time.
Documentary proof of citizenship requirements
In 2024, two states with a Republican trifecta—Louisiana and New Hampshire—adopted laws that require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote. In 2025, Wyoming became the seventh state to pass a proof of citizenship requirement to register, and the first to require a voter updating their registration to also provide proof of citizenship.
Other Republican-led efforts that changed proof of citizenship requirements include:
- Indiana’s HB 1680, which requires certain voter registration applicants to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days of receiving a notice from election officials.
- New Hampshire’s SB 218, which requires voter registration applicants using the state’s absentee registration affidavit to provide a photocopy of a valid identification and documentation verifying the voter’s citizenship and residence.
- Ohio’s HB 54, the state’s biennial transportation budget bill, which includes a provision requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Every state requires people applying to register to vote to provide either documentary proof of citizenship or to attest under penalty of perjury, or other sanction, that they are a citizen. In addition to the states listed above, Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, and Georgia have documentary proof-of- citizenship requirements in state law. Only Arizona’s law is in effect, and only for state elections, after federal courts have limited enforcement of these requirements for federal elections. Click on each state above to read more about these laws and legal challenges.
Separately, voters in at least four states—Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, and South Dakota—will consider ballot measures in 2025 or 2026 to clarify that noncitizens are not able to vote in any elections in the state after lawmakers referred these measures to the ballot. This comes after voters in eight states—Iowa, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin—approved legislatively referred constitutional amendments to do the same in 2024.
Voter list maintenance
There are 27 new laws related to voter list maintenance (VLM) in 17 states. The majority of these laws are in states with a Republican trifecta (23 bills and resolutions)—repeating trends from previous years—and none are in a state with a Democratic trifecta.
Ten states enacted 11 bills that require election officials to use new or different sources for voter list maintenance activities. Ten states, including nine with a Republican trifecta, passed new laws that explicitly require new checks or transfers of data related to citizenship.
New laws include:
- In Alabama, SB 142 removed the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) as a source of data for state voter list maintenance activities. Alabama—which left ERIC in 2023— is one of nine, mostly Republican-led, states that have withdrawn from the organization since 2022. The bill also establishes the Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID). It also requires a comparison of the state voter registration list against the Alabama driver’s license and nondriver ID records, voter lists shared directly from other states, the National Change of Address database, Social Security Death Index, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.
- In Kansas, which has a divided government, HB 2020 requires the director of the division of motor vehicles to provide a quarterly report to the secretary of state to verify the citizenship of voters and voter registration applicants. It would also require officials to notify anyone removed from the voter rolls due to an unverified or disputed citizenship status.
- In New Hampshire, SB 221 requires certain voter list maintenance activities to occur annually instead of at least once every 10 years and lengthens the period of inactivity required before an official may cancel a voter’s registration from four to five years.
- West Virginia’s SB 487 reduces the period of inactivity required to begin the process of designating a voter as inactive from four years to two. The bill passed the state’s Senate on March 5 when one of the chamber’s two Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for the bill.
- In Indiana, HB 1679—which makes other changes to elections discussed above—requires local officials to do an annual check for voters registered with nonresidential addresses. It also requires, instead of permits, officials to take action related to list maintenance information within 48 hours.
- In Texas, SB 1470 requires the secretary of state to use driver’s license or ID data from other states to identify Texas voters who may have changed addresses, became disqualified, or registered in multiple states. It also requires the Department of Public Safety to share data on individuals who hold a Texas driver’s license or ID and apply for a license or ID in another state. State law previously required the secretary of state to participate in some of these activities.
- Wyoming’s HF 318, which requires new sharing of data related to citizenship between the secretary of state and the state’s department of transportation. It also authorizes the secretary of state to use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to check registered voter’s citizenship status. Also in Wyoming, SF 165 allows election clerks to email a voter whose registration may be cancelled, in addition to mailing them as previously required by law.
Governors have also vetoed eight VLM bills, all in states with divided governments. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed four, including:
- HB 2276, which would have specified new criteria for matching voter information to VLM data sources by creating a “confidence score” system to match data to voter records. Under the system, the Department of Elections would use a points-based system to determine match confidence, assigning point values to matching fields such as Social Security number, DMV ID, name, birthdate, and address. Among other changes to VLM procedures, the bill would also have required the department to annually review all data sources used in voter roll maintenance to evaluate their accuracy, completeness, and reliability.
- HB 2002, which would have restricted the ability of registrars to cancel voter registrations, including when a voter temporarily lives outside the U.S., such as active duty members of the military and their spouses or dependents. It also stipulated that a registrar can only cancel a registration based on data or reports that the Department of Elections or an approved state agency provides.
- SB 813, which would have required the Department of Elections to complete any program that systematically removes the names of ineligible voters from the voter registration system no later than 90 days before a primary or general election, except if the voter requests cancellation, is convicted of a disqualifying crime, dies, or the change is to correct voters’ records.
Click here to see a complete list of new VLM laws.
Other developments
Other new voter registration laws include:
- Arkansas adopted SB 272 prohibiting anyone from pre-filing information on voter registration forms.
- Virginia’s SB 991 which requires registration records to be closed during the 10 days (rather than 21 days) before a primary or general election and 10 days (rather than 13) before most special elections.
- Vermont’s H 474, which, among other changes, restricts the state Department of Motor Vehicles from sharing information for voter registration unless they have documented citizenship or the individual has attested they are a citizen.
- SB 5077 in Washington, which has a Democratic trifecta, gives the governor authority to expand automatic voter registration services to agencies that already process and collect the necessary information, under certain conditions. This may include state, local, federal, and tribal agencies.
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.
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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
