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State of Election Administration Legislation 2025 Year-End Report: Introduction
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Absentee/mail-in voting • Early voting • Electoral systems • Voting rights for convicted felons • Private funding • Primary systems • Redistricting • Voter identification |
December 16, 2025
By Ballotpedia staff
Introduction
What's in the report
This report contains analysis and takeaways on 2025 election-related state legislation. It focuses on the policy topics and states where legislators passed the most new laws and examines seven key issues, providing context about changing policies and updates on new laws in each area. We selected these topics based on the attention lawmakers have given these issues in recent legislative sessions and emerging trends in policy proposals.
The report includes in-depth summaries of new laws in 18 states—seven with Republican trifectas, six with Democratic trifectas, and five with divided governments. These are states where lawmakers have adopted numerous or notable election-related laws.
Throughout the report, we also include information about legislation that failed or was still under consideration at the time of publication, as well as noteworthy bills outside of the highlighted topic areas and states. However, with close to 5,000 election-related bills considered in 2025, the report is not comprehensive.
Session summary
All 50 states held legislative sessions in 2025. Lawmakers passed 627 new election laws in 2025, more than last year (440), but fewer than in 2023 (723). Continuing a multi-year trend, laws from states with Republican trifectas make up a majority of new laws, and are a larger share of new laws in 2025 (66.5%) than they were in the last odd year (53.2%). Following the 2024 elections, there was one more state with a Republican trifecta, and one more state with divided government than there was in 2023.
The four states with the most new laws in 2025 all have Republican trifectas, and Republican trifectas make up eight out of the top 10 states with the most new election legislation adopted this year. Republican-led states also adopted a higher share of Republican-sponsored bills (77.7%) than Democratic-led states did Democratic-sponsored bills (59.6%). In total, Republican-sponsored legislation in states with a Republican trifecta makes up the majority of new election laws (324, 51.7% of all new laws).
Read on to learn more about key topics, state activity, and trends in new election laws.
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.
Ballotpedia's Election Administration Tracker sets the industry standard for ease of use, flexibility, and raw power. But that's just the beginning of what it can do:
- Ballotpedia's election experts provide daily updates on bills and other relevant political developments.
- We translate complex bill text into easy-to-understand summaries written in everyday language.
- And because it's from Ballotpedia, our Tracker is guaranteed to be neutral, unbiased, and nonpartisan.
About the authors
Joe Greaney and Andrew Bahl are staff writers on Ballotpedia's Law Team.
Law Team Managing Editor Janie Valentine reviewed the report and provided feedback, as did Senior Editor Norm Leahy, and 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
