The Ballot Bulletin: October 10, 2025
Welcome to The Ballot Bulletin: Ballotpedia’s Weekly Digest on Election Administration. Every Friday, we deliver the latest updates on election policy around the country, including nationwide trends and recent legislative activity.
In this week’s Ballot Bulletin, we cover 34 bills state legislatures acted on in the past week.
Weekly highlights
The big takeaways from the past week's legislative actions.
Lawmakers in five states acted on 34 bills over the last week, six more than last week. Eight state legislatures are still in regular or special sessions.
- Twenty bills were enacted this week. None were enacted during the same week in 2024, 20 were enacted in 2023, and one was enacted in 2022.
- Legislators acted on four bills in 2024 and 28 in 2023 during the same week.
- Twenty-seven of the bills acted on this week are in states with Democratic trifectas, three are in states with Republican trifectas, and four are in states with a divided government.
- The most active bill categories this week were election types and contest-specific procedures (8), counting and certification (7), absentee/mail-in voting (4), ballots and voting materials (4), and campaign finance(4).
- We are currently following 4,822 bills. At this time in 2023, the last odd year when all states held legislative sessions, we were following 3,125 bills.
In the news
A glance at what's making headlines in the world of election law.
- On Oct. 9, the Georgia NAACP and two Georgia voters filed a lawsuit against the Meriwether County Board of Commissioners in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The plaintiffs alleged that the board's district boundaries dilute Black voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
- On Oct. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections. U.S. Rep. Michael Bost (R), who represents Illinois’s 12th District, filed the lawsuit in May 2022 against the Illinois State Board of Elections, challenging a state law allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots up to fourteen days after Election Day if the ballots are postmarked by Election Day.
- On Oct. 3, a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge in Wisconsin ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to review the state’s voter registration data against Department of Transportation records to identify ineligible voters. The Wisconsin Department of Justice is appealing the decision, and a hearing is set for Oct. 31.
- On Oct. 3, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed bills on reporting requirements for counted ballots and timelines for curing ballots, both of which also affect how quickly unofficial results are reported. AB5 requires election officials to count most ballots and release a tally of those ballots no later than 13 days after an election. AB827 moves the deadline for election officials to notify a voter about a signature defect from the 22nd day after the election to the 14th. The bill also moves the deadline for a voter to cure a ballot from the 28th day to the 22nd day after an election. AB16, which Newsom signed on Oct. 1, allows officials to start processing ballots sooner—at any point after they mail ballots to voters.
Key movements
A look at what bills are moving and where.
Twenty bills were enacted in the past week. No bills were enacted during the same week in 2024, 20 were enacted in 2023, and one was enacted in 2022. To see all enacted bills, click here.
- California (Democratic trifecta)
- New Jersey (Democratic trifecta)
- Ohio (Republican trifecta)
No bills passed both chambers of a state legislature. To see the full list of all bills awaiting gubernatorial action, click here.
One bill was vetoed in the past week. Seventy-one bills have been vetoed so far this year. No bills were vetoed during this period in 2024, 2023, or 2022. To see all vetoed bills, click here.
- California (Democratic trifecta)
The big picture
Zooming out to see the macro-level trends in election policy so far this year.
Enacted bills
Twenty bills were enacted this week. The chart below shows the number of enacted bills in 2025 compared to previous years.
The chart below shows the number of bills enacted over the first 41 weeks of each year.
All bills
We are following 4,822 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,780 (36.9%)
- Republican: 2,243 (46.5%)
- Divided: 799 (16.6%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,865 (38.7%)
- Republican: 2,333 (48.4%)
- Bipartisan: 401 (8.3%)
- Other: 223 (4.6%)
We were following 3,125 bills at this point in 2023. Below is a breakdown of those bills by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
- Trifecta status
- Democratic: 1,581 (50.6%)
- Republican: 1,058 (33.9%)
- Divided: 486 (15.6%)
- Partisan sponsorship
- Democratic: 1,436 (46%)
- Republican: 1,159 (37.1%)
- Bipartisan: 352 (11.3%)
- Other: 178 (5.7%)
See the charts below for a comparison of total bills between 2023 and 2025 and a breakdown of all 2025 legislation by trifecta status and partisan sponsorship.
